


The Eagle on the Ramparts

by Canafinwe (StoplightDelight)



Category: The Lord of the Rings - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Corsairs of Umbar - Freeform, Gen, Gondor, Guards of the Citadel, Knight of Gondor, Medical Procedures, Military Training, Minas Tirith, Rivalry, Thorongil - Freeform, envy - Freeform, soldier of fortune
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-22
Updated: 2021-02-23
Packaged: 2021-03-12 04:21:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 5
Words: 35,270
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29629017
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/StoplightDelight/pseuds/Canafinwe
Summary: From Rohan he came, but he was not one of the Rohirrim. Thorongil he was called, the Eagle of the Star, and he was the son of no man. Strong was his sword arm, unfailing his courage. Yet not all welcomed the stranger to Minas Tirith...
Comments: 5
Kudos: 23





	1. The Wanderer

**Author's Note:**

> This work is being cross-posted from Stories of Arda and ff-dot-net, first posted in 2017. New chapters are coming to all three sites soon.
> 
> My particular flavour of neurodiversity means I use tags very lightly. Please request any specific tags or trauma trigger warnings, and I will happily use them.

**Chapter I: The Wanderer**

Many were the miles that lay between great Rauros Falls and the ancient City of Kings. The land undulated with stony hills and shallow dales, sprinkled liberally throughout with woodland. It was not an onerous road but neither was it leisurely, and it had been many years since Thorongil had gone so far afoot. Still he found that he had settled well these last weeks into the rhythm of travel. He kept a good pace even without cause to hurry, and both his legs and his boots were holding up. He had worried about the boots. They had been made to fit him and to his specifications; he had taken care to break them in well through the month before he took his leave. But the cordwainders of Edoras were accustomed to crafting footwear that would stand up to manual labour or long days ahorse, not a trek of six score leagues through unpredictable wilderness. Still, these boots were serving him well and Thorongil deemed them worth their steep price.

There had been no cause to husband his coin in any case. The incomes Thorongil had held by gift of Thengel King had been largely put to use in the equipage and maintenance of his own éored and the supplementary support of the others beneath his command. For himself, Thorongil had only ever reserved enough to meet his daily needs and to see to the orderly management of the small stone house he had also occupied by the pleasure of the King. In settling his affairs in Rohan, he had remanded custody of the dwelling back to Thengel. The farmholdings and their tithes had been deeded at his request to his most trusted lieutenant, now both Captain of what had been known as the Eagle's Éored and Undermarshal in Thorongil's place.

It had all been settled very neatly, but the final result was that Thorongil had left Edoras with scarcely more than he had brought to it almost nine years before. He had the new boots, a little coin, a few simple garments too worn or personal to gift to friends and subordinates, and a book of songs and stories of the Riddermark he had compiled over the years. He had also borne a packful of travel fare, but that was long eaten now. Most important of all, he carried a letter of introduction from the King of Rohan in Thengel's own hand. This, Thorongil hoped, would be his surety that despite his reduced circumstances he would not start with nothing in his new life.

It was not that he had been driven destitute from Rohan, even with the reversion of his royal warrants. On the contrary, Thengel had tried to lavish rewards for his services upon Thorongil. The King had offered treasure and other moveable assets. When his erstwhile servant had courteously declined these, he had made the princely offer of Thorongil's pick of a breeding pair of horses – any two he wished, save only the royally reserved _Mearas_ themselves.

Thorongil's reasons for refusing the gifts of wealth were threefold. First, he had not come to Rohan with the intention of enriching his person, but to learn all he need know of the Rohirrim, their hearts and ways, and of mounted warfare. Second, he had no wish to come to his destination as a prosperous lord from Gondor's closest ally. He was not interested in learning how the people of Anarion's city greeted and treated a newcome luminary, but in how they – and perhaps most importantly, the Steward – were disposed to a foreigner of no name and few prospects. Last of all, Thorongil still possessed a young man's doubts about his own worth. He wished to be taken on his merits alone, which allowed the use of the testament but not the trappings of privilege. Ecthelion son of Turgon, twenty-fifth reigning Steward of Gondor, had made known far and wide that he welcomed all men of worth into his service, regardless of their birth. Thorongil intended to put that to the test.

As for the horses, he was bound for a city of stone where he would have neither pasturage nor the means to procure livery services. Thorongil had no wish to curb the liberty of the fair steeds of Rohan merely to wait upon a day when he might have the means to provide for them.

He had not made for Minas Tirith by the most direct path. His years in close community among the good folk of Rohan had proved rich and rewarding, but they had left him yearning for a taste of solitude. Thorongil had felt the need for quiet contemplation and reflection upon his duties and his destiny, whatever the last might be. Therefore upon departing Thengel's court in honour and friendship, he had set out upon a pilgrimage to the ancient seat of Amon Hen.

The choice to visit this place of reverence and history had seemed natural and almost foreordained. Having drawn so near it – within but a hundred miles – he could scarcely have failed to make the journey. It was a relic of the days of the great kings, and a wonder of the world as it had been. There long ago had Gondor kept a watch, and there still stood the Seat of Seeing.

Upon it Thorongil had sat, long descendant of kings and heir to Elendil himself. At first he had felt absurd, with the grime of travel upon his face and his body clad in his old clothes. These he had worn on his southward journey to Rohan years ago, and they were now ill-fitting upon a body grown both taller and stronger with his labours. But as he sat and breathed the cold air of winter's dying days, Thorongil had felt the change in himself. His aspect grew more stern and ennobled, and his posture straighter and more regal than even a skilled swordsman's finesse ordinarily allowed. His heart began to beat quick and strong with the essence of Westernesse and he had known, with a certainty, that he belonged here on this high seat of kings, looking out upon a world given at least in part into his stewardship.

First to the West had he looked, from whence he had most lately come. There the coarse woods and rocky soil had stretched for a moment clear to the horizon. Then his sight had lengthened: not a seeing of the eyes so much as of the mind. And Thorongil had looked upon the broad plains of Rohan, yet brown and dormant but soon to be clad in the brilliant green of springtime. He could see the horsemen riding, the plumes of their helms rippling to echo of their mounts' silken tails. He could see the cotholds and the rural manors where dwelt people both simple and wise, good of heart and strong in their resolve to live out that goodness each day. He could see the three rings about the city of Edoras, and the glint of the golden roof of the Meduseld. And he saw a land still beleaguered upon her borders, but more secure now than she had been in many a year. And he saw and he knew that this security was due in some small part to his own contributions, and he was glad.

Then he had looked to the North, where lay the Hithaeglir and the long road home. He had feared to gaze that way, lest the longing for the lands of his youth and the haven of his childhood should overpower his resolve. But his farsightedness spared him this: it did not stretch so far. He could see the Misty Mountains, tall and majestic, and he could see the dark things – orc and beast and watcher – that crept back into them with each passing year. A day would come when such dangerous creatures would have to be dealt with, but now was not the time. Thorongil saw a dale like a great basin at the feet of three lofty peaks, and though there was nothing there to be seen but the empty land his heart had filled with a cold dread, and a lump as if of sorrow had risen unbidden in his throat. He looked no further northwards.

Steeling himself, he had turned to the East. He was yet many leagues to the North of the nearest marches of Mordor, and yet it seemed as if he saw them: grey barren mountains swept with ash and the bones of folk long slaughtered. His pulse beat quick as he beheld the Dark Tower: Barad-dûr slowly rising again from the black plain of Gorgoroth, blacker still than the land and the clouds of belching poisons that hung low upon that place. Its foundations, the restoration of which had begun in the very year Thorongil had come into his own by the gift of Master Elrond of Imladris, were now complete. Its middling walls were high, and growing higher with the days as the slaves of Mordor toiled. From them already rose turrets and battlements and the half-grown spires of terrible towers to come. All about that place there hung a portent of dread despair, and before it glowed the fires of Orodruin. That sight had held Thorongil transfixed, lost in horror and dismay and a growing righteous rage that swelled within him until his strength, so bolstered, was sufficient to tear his eyes away. Then all he saw were nameless forests on Anduin's far bank, stretching off many miles in emptiness.

Last of all, Thorongil had turned to the South: towards his most immediate future and his long intent. He beheld the curl of Anduin: at his feet crashing over Rauros and sweeping away down, down through the ruins of the great city of Osgiliath; down past the river-havens of Pelargir and the high sandy walls of Dol Amroth to the Bay of Belfalas upon the Sea itself. And beyond he saw other things: sly gatherings to ocean ports, and the busy hives of new construction where of old there had been dilapidation and poverty. He saw deep barks upon troughs of dry-dock, crusted with scaffolding and crawling with shipwrights. Thorongil saw danger: not immediate, but inexorable.

And he had seen the broad lands of Gondor away to the southwest, fair and fertile but troubled with wild men and brigands and the servants of Sauron. He saw the dells and orchards of Lossarnach, yet dormant in earnest of spring's fertility. He saw the busy valleys of Lamedon, and the far hill-country of Pinnath Gelin. All this he saw, and it was fair and wholesome and vibrant with life and with pride. He saw that it needed to be safeguarded, protected from the incursions upon its borders and the threat of worse to come – from South and East both. And Thorongil knew that he had chosen his course aright.

To Minas Tirith he had not looked, for he wished to behold that great city first with his own keen sight and not the hazy and changeable eyes of the mind. He had risen from the seat then, but long had he lingered in the cobbled ring; far into the night while he sat in deep thought with his back to the tumbled stone battlement. When at last his eyes could no longer hold themselves open, nor his mind keep its alertness, he had descended the steep slope with its crumbling stairs and found a place that was fit for the mundanities of supper and slumber.

All that had come to pass twenty-two days before, and since then Thorongil had been making his way steadily south along Anduin. His progress was hampered somewhat by the need to hunt, for his rations were utterly depleted and winter was not a time of plentiful foraging. He managed to keep hunger at bay with his catches: snared rabbits, wild pheasant felled with a stone from a sling, and fish from shallows of the Great River. When he had come to the marshy delta of Onodló, Thorongil had been faced with a choice: brave the uncertain and changeable lands, or take the long westward road around, back into Eastfold from whence he had come. He had settled upon the more expedient route.

It had proved a treacherous and most unpleasant road, but here the woodscraft learned from the sons of Elrond and his own Dúnedain had served Thorongil well. He could navigate a marsh, however broad, and he had good boots upon his feet. Of course it had proved impossible to keep dry in such a place, and he had taken a couple of very mucky duckings. The nights had been most miserable of all, huddled upright on sodden ground or, if he was very fortunate, stretched out upon some obliging stone washed here long ago in the changing of the world. Still he had emerged after six such nights alive, four-limbed, and still soundly shod.

He had been very hungry upon his return to dry land, for there was little fit for eating in such a place and what game there was proved difficult to overtake when one was splashing and squelching through a flooded bog. Thorongil had managed with a few hours' labour to secure a plump rook to break his fast, and had braved the icy bite of Anduin's shallows to bathe his body and soak the worst of the mud from his clothes. They had dried by degrees over the next two days, but they looked much the worse for his floundering. They were stained and ground deep with dirt that he had no hope of removing without fuller's earth or soap. He had also torn wide the left knee of his hose in a particularly nasty fall across a sunken boulder. Long removed from wandering, Thorongil had not thought to bring needle and thread, so he went on with the skinned section of his leg bared to the elements.

He was walking now through Anórien, passing through fertile farmland instead of empty forest. It made a pleasant change, but Thorongil did not tarry. He could taste his goal upon the wind now, and he pressed on at a great pace. His long legs had strengthened considerably in his three weeks' steady walking, and he took great, swift strides as he followed rutted byways or the ditches of harder roads on his southward march.

He met a few folk as he went, but it was yet early in the year to be abroad in the fields. Those Thorongil did see were wary of strangers, but endeavoured to be kind. Anórien was border-country, and only its northwesterly edge drew up upon the dominion of a friend. More than once word had come to Edoras of orcs crossing over Anduin to worry these lands, and the Easterlings came still more frequently. But Thorongil had about himself the look of Númenor, and he was not waylaid. Neither was he offered any hospitality beyond the use of a well or leave to camp for a night in the shelter of a meadow hedge, but he sought none. He was content to maintain his rustic arrangements until he came to his destination.

He knew it was near. The land was ever more densely peopled, and that morning he had passed through the outskirts of a busy little town. He was eager now, his heart quick within him and the ambitions that he so often laid aside for the sake of more immediate efforts now foremost in his mind. If one day he achieved all that was foretold, these lands and the tower that overlooked him would be under his hand and entrusted to his care. He was walking not into a strange place, but towards his own city: the city of his birthright, the citadel of his forefathers, and the seat of the empty throne he longed one day to fill — that through his service might follow a greater grace.

These thoughts were still fresh in his mind when the market-road he was following crested a hill, and Minas Tirith rose before his eyes. Its concentric white walls seemed to spiral up the slope of stony Mindoluin, bright in the sunshine with the grey of the streets between each to separate them. The ancient strength of that city, thrust up above the fruitful farmlands of the Pelennor Fields, awoke in Thorongil's breast an awe he had scarcely imagined even in the dreams of his youth. A feat of Númenorean architecture such as the masons of these latter days could not hope to echo, the City of Kings seemed rooted to the mountain instead of built upon it. It looked as though it always had stood and would always stand just as it was at this moment: lofty and proud and glorious.

And crowing it all was the White Tower, erected to its present splendour by he from whom the Steward took his name. It shot upward to the sky, a spire as straight and true as any known upon the earth. White as pearl it was, and it shone in the noonday Sun with such silvery brilliance that it reminded Thorongil of nothing so much as the spear Aeglos out of legend. The association was not surprising. His mind was filled with thoughts of Elendil and his mightiest ally, of his sons who had overseen the building of this towering city and its mate, of all he had read and all he had been told of the greatest of his forebearers ever to walk these easterly lands. His heart was filled with reverence and a sobering sense of his own smallness before such a legacy.

Yet still his legs were filled with strength and eagerness, and they carried him swiftly down the hillside towards the first great gate. He had many miles yet to walk through the fertile fields and fallows of the Pelennor, but in that moment it seemed nothing stood betwixt him and his destination but the length of his stride.

_lar_

In the council chamber of the White Tower stood Ecthelion son of Turgon, second of that name and twenty-fourth in direct descent from Mardil Voronwë himself. His back was to the great table littered with the detritus of that morning's meeting of the Steward's Council. It had been a less productive session than Ecthelion had hoped, and it was a childish but very real comfort to turn his gaze from its ruins. Far better to look out upon the Court of the Fountain, even though winter's fruitlessness lay bleak upon it and left the carefully tended greensward an indifferent brown. The water flowed, dancing high and beading like diamante on the bare and drooping limbs of the White Tree. It was a heartening sight for Ecthelion's eyes: a tangible reminder that though the line of Kings had faded, Gondor yet endured and would continue to endure so long as her Steward remained faithful and strong.

Yet at times strength was a burden, and never more so than when the Council was in disagreement. Presiding over a room of argumentative noblemen was no easy task, and today Ecthelion had not even had the aid of his son. For Denethor had sided against his father in the debate, and showed no interest in reigning in the quarrel while it delayed any further action in the matter of the wall.

There had been no opposition five years before, when Ecthelion had first proposed the idea. The fortification of the causeway that lead eastward to the ruins of Osgiliath and the perilous road to Morgul Vale had been universally approved and funds swiftly allotted from the Treasury to finance its making. Now the construction was complete: the gate with its flanking turrets and strong, high walls that sloped down to either side for a distance of a mile or more in either direction. The time had come to implement the second phase of the defences: the building of a great ring wall to enclose the fields of the Pelennor and secure the farms and orchards that supplied Minas Tirith with the greater part of her foodstuffs. Yet now the Council balked, and there was dissension even between the Steward and his Heir.

Denethor argued that such a defence was naught but a token: a placating gesture that did more to ease the minds of common folk than to safeguard them from the Enemy's advances. To his voice were added others: Belthil, Lord of Lammedon, argued against the impracticality of so massive an undertaking; the Exchequer was concerned about the strain upon the finances of the realm. Still others spoke to the want of stone, the pressure on the undermanned quarries to produce, and the difficulty of finding qualified stonemasons to erect a barrier that could endure a true assault. Most damning of all were the words of Adrahil of Dol Amroth, who sat in his father's place on the Council.

'Will it not serve only to show the Enemy our fear?' he had asked in his quiet but knowing way. 'Were I the Master of Barad-dûr, I would look upon such labours and say to my servants; "Lo! I have broken them at last. See how they scurry like ants shoring up their little hill before the mighty tide!".'

It was then that Ecthelion had known the debate was lost, despite those who argued on his side. The great wall would not be built this year; that much was certain. And in that lost year, as with every turn of the seasons, the Shadow would deepen and the fires of Orodruin grow fiercer. The Dark Tower would climb higher by slow yet ineluctable degrees. Gondor's defences could not match its pace. That was the dread he had borne through the years of his Stewardship, and now it rested more heavily on his heart than ever before.

A soft cough alerted him to a second presence in the chamber, but Ecthelion did not turn. He watched the water dripping patiently from the Tree, and he thought to himself: _Gondor will endure. She must endure. I must make her endure_.

'Yes?' he asked tonelessly, not knowing whether it was lord or servant who stood behind him. It might even be his wife or one of his daughters, if Denethor had forewarned them of his opposition and the Council's hard debates.

The voice that spoke was the one Ecthelion had least expected to hear.

'My father,' said Denethor, in the same measured manner.

Now Ecthelion did turn, looking to his third child and the great pride of his heart. Denethor was taller than his sire – the tallest man in the city, and likely in all the land. He had the dark hair and steely eyes so common among his race, but in his noble features and his bearing, in his height and his insight and his power to stir the hearts of men to loyalty unmatched, he was more than an ordinary lordling of Gondor. In him the blood of Númenor seemed to run pure, or nearly so. Ecthelion knew that in his heir he had met his better, and he was glad. Gondor deserved great men, and such a one was Denethor.

Yet he was also stern and often impatient. He had little tolerance for the failings of others, and little time to lavish upon the gentler aspects of human interaction. At five and thirty he was already a hardened Captain-General, but more than that he was a hard man. Forgiveness came slowly to Denethor's heart, and forgetfulness never. In battle his disposition served him well, but in the training of green recruits it was no asset. Nor did it make the mending of quarrels between father and son any easy matter.

'I respect your concerns about the fastness of the proposed wall,' Ecthelion said carefully. He knew he must seem neither anxious nor patronizing, for the second Denethor would resent and the first he would scorn. 'It is true that such a fortification will be vulnerable during the years of its making. Yet the stonemasons of Gondor know much of strong walls and mighty defences. Consider the Ring of Isengard, impenetrable to the most fearsome assault. I aspire only to give our folk such protection.'

'I have argued my case already, and I shall not do so again merely for the advantage of a private audience,' Denethor said coolly. There was high pride in the tilt of his head, but at least no disdain in his voice.

In times past, Ecthelion had borne much from his son; more than most fathers would have tolerated from the vagaries of adolescence. During the early years of Denethor's majority, Ecthelion wondered whether he had erred in allowing his son the freedom to speak his mind so long as in action he was obedient. Yet now he had a clear-headed and strong-willed advisor and tactician to lean upon, and that was worth the wounds of harsh words and the sting of disrespect he had endured.

Now he nodded. 'An admirable position, Captain-General,' he said. He knew it pleased Denethor to be addressed by his rank, and he deserved it. He had earned the position through far more than right of birth alone, and in thirteen short years of holding it he had already spilled more blood of the foe than Ecthelion had in all his own tenure.

'Why did you return, if not for that end?' he asked pleasantly, daring now to smile as his son's eyes softened a little. Ecthelion gestured to the clutter on the table. 'Have you come to help me put this mess to rights?'

Denethor sighed with the endurance of one repeating an old grievance out of love alone. 'There are servants to do that,' he said, drawing near and brushing clean a swath of the board. Parings of quills, scraps of torn paper, and a dusting of blotter sand fled before his hand as only a fortnight past the Easterlings had fled before his standard. 'Must you take it upon yourself to put everything to rights, even the tables?'

Ecthelion chuckled and clapped his heir's arm. 'Must you always rise to my baiting? I spoke in jest, and well you know it. Lend me your aid with the map, at least. One of my trusted councillors advised me to take greater care with such things, for it may be a pageboy can be bought.'

Denethor's mouth curled in a wry half-smile. It had been he, of course, who had made that argument. He had a caution of spies and traitors that Ecthelion himself could not quite understand. Certainly there were watchers aplenty, both near and abroad. But never in the years of his rule had Gondor been betrayed by one of her own.

Denethor would have added _to our knowledge_ to qualify such a claim.

Together they lifted the great map of the city and the lands about her feet. Like housemaids shaking out a sheet they tilted it, making the parchment shiver and ripple to clean it of any sand. It was not often that any of the maps were marked, for they were costly to reproduce and their accuracy was of paramount value. Yet today Ecthelion had sketched in ink his proposed path for what he hoped one day would be the Rammas Echor of the Pelennor fields. It had seemed at the time a gesture of optimism. Now he wondered whether it had been one of desperation instead.

Denethor held his corners of the map taut so that Ecthelion could roll it. Then the Steward held the tube snug while Denethor took up the scarlet ribbon that had bound it. He knotted it deftly, and accepted the map while his father moved to the tall cabinet that housed all the charts of strategy employed in Gondor's defence. Captains and companies of soldiers had their own copies of one or two at a time, as befitted their need and their responsibilities, but here were held the masters. The contents of this cupboard would be worth a princely price to the Enemy. Thus it was kept locked fast and secured in this room in the White Tower, where the sable Guards of the Citadel kept a constant watch. Talk of pageboys or chambermaids absconding with a map was unreasoned wariness on Denethor's part.

Still it was with great care that Ecthelion turned the key in its heavy lock, testing the doors to be sure they held firm. Denethor looked on with tacit sanction of this caution, his hand at his hip. He fingered the silver tracery of the Great Horn where it hung from its silken baldric. He did so often at such moments, when he saw his sire in some act of which he heartily approved. It was a thing only a father might notice, and Ethelion believed he read the gesture for what it was. Denethor was looking at his father and thinking that this he too would do, when he was himself the Steward.

With the great ring of keys was returned to its place on Ecthelion's belt, Denethor spoke. 'I came to ask your counsel, my father,' he said, looking off into the middle space above Ethelion's head. It was an easy thing for one of his height. 'Will you walk with me in the Court, and hear my concern?'

'You need never ask that,' said Ecthelion, both surprised and pleased by the request. 'My counsel is ever at your disposal, as I hope yours is to me.'

'It is,' said Denethor, holding open the door to the council chamber so that his father might pass through before him. Such protocols came naturally to him, but there were times when they seemed more the product of reflex than of true humility. 'Yet in this matter I have counselled in vain, and now I must ask what my Lord Steward in his wisdom intended in such an exigency.'

They took a torchlit corridor to the small postern that opened near the back of the Court of the Fountain. The great entrance to the Tower stood almost a quadrant away, and the guards before it were out of earshot of speakers who kept low their voices. There was only one open arch into the courtyard, and so no need to guard this lesser door.

Denethor's boots clicked upon the white paving stones, and Ecthelion's soft shoes whispered with the hems of his robes. His son was dressed for action, as he most often did, but Ecthelion had long ago done away with jerkins that brushed the knees and snug hose that allowed for swift movement. He was a man at the end of his middle years of life, though in that older than lesser men were. His days of springing into battle or sparring in the barracks-yards were past him.

'What is this exigency that proves beyond the scope of your judgment?' asked Ecthelion. He regretted his wording almost at once, seeing how his son might misconstrue it.

Yet Denethor gave no sign of offence. With perfect credulity he said; 'I wondered only how Your Lordship intended such situations to be dealt with when he made public his unprecedented policy of welcome. I do not know what you wish me to do, for I do not wish to overstep the constraints of my rank.'

Now Ecthelion understood. There was a problem with one of the foreign soldiers that he had welcomed into his service. This policy had been one of the first he had implemented upon his ascension, and even as a youth of four and twenty Denethor had disputed its prudence. Emissaries of Gondor had let it be known far and wide than any man of worth who wished to pledge his fidelity to the Steward would be welcomed into his service. In the last few years, as the Shadow grew and the need to bolster Gondor's defences increased, the promotion of this proclamation had become more aggressive.

As a result, the influx of men from far and wide had become greater. Although Denethor distanced himself from the management of these soldiers, in token of his disapproval of the policy, he was seldom approached by confounded Captains, There were procedures in place for the vetting and acceptance of such men, for their housing in their first days in Minas Tirith (for many were indigent and some had crossed through the Enemy's lines with nothing to their name), and of the placing of recruits with appropriate companies. Ecthelion was compelled to wonder what might have arisen that his advisors had not foreseen.

'Is there a newcomer who has given you cause to doubt the sincerity of his suit?' he asked. There were measures in place for this also, but it was always a delicate situation. Particularly when only Denethor found a candidate suspect.

'It is no newcomer, but one who has dwelt in the city now seven years,' said Denethor. 'Jamon the Easterling, soldier of the Ninth Company of the City Guard, has asked leave of his Captain to wed.'

'That is scarcely a matter for your concern,' Ecthelion said mildly. It was customary for a soldier of lower rank to ask his commanding officer's permission before taking a wife, but it was not required under any law or regulation. It was merely a courtesy, because of the changes marriage required of a man's situation. While it was true that such a matter had never yet arisen among the outland soldiers, it was hardly baffling. 'Let Beleg decide for himself whether the union has his blessing.'

'It has,' said Denethor. Now his voice was very hard. 'It has not _my_ blessing.'

This surprised a little laugh from the Steward's lips. 'And is the blessing of the Captain-General needed for a wedding?' he asked. 'As you have but lately reminded me, there are those beneath you to see to that.'

'Ordinarily, yes,' Denethor said. The words came out tightly, as if through teeth biting down upon some unseemly sentiment. 'Yet as the man is not one of our own—'

'He has served loyally for seven years, has he not?' Ecthelion asked. Sooner or later all soldiers of fortune were brought before him, but he could not remember this Jamon. It was all but certain, then, that there had never been any lapse of discipline upon the Easterling's part. 'Does that not make him one of our own?'

'One of our soldiers, yes,' Denethor conceded. 'But he is not one of our folk; of our blood. The girl he wishes to marry is a merchant's daughter of an old family. A daughter of Gondor, of Westernesse. It is thoroughly unsuitable.'

It was on the tip of Ecthelion's tongue to ask what other sort of girl Denethor thought a Guard of the City might wed, unless it be one of the few children of Rohan who dwelt in Minas Tirith. His decree had brought few women to Gondor, for itinerant swordsmen were a solitary breed and those who came from Mordor's tributaries were often driven to defect by the loss of wives and children at the hands of the Enemy's servants. Yet he did not speak his mind, not wishing to belittle his son by picking at his reasoning.

'Have the girl's parents made any complaint about the man's conduct?' asked Ecthelion instead. Harassment of the citizenry was strictly forbidden for all soldiers of Gondor. She might be a kingdom at war, but the Steward refused to see her reduced to a military state.

'To my knowledge, no,' Denethor said. 'Captain Beleg has met with the father to ensure they have his consent to the match. Of the mother's feelings I know nothing. Yet it cannot be allowed, my Lord. If we permit such rabble to wed our daughters—'

'Rabble?' Now Ecthelion was flummoxed. 'You said he was a Guard in my service. I have never heard any complaint against him, and it is required that accusations against any of my soldiers of fortune be brought to me. Do you know something I do not?'

'I know he is an Easterling, swarthy of skin and deceitful by nature,' Denethor spat. 'I will not stand idly by while one of our women shackles herself to such a creature of Sauron.'

Ecthelion stiffened, and not only at the rancour in his son's voice. The name of the Enemy was seldom spoken in the city, so wound was it with dread and destruction, yet Denethor insisted upon using it. This act of defiance against the Shadow was admirable, but the ease with which the name came to the man's lips filled his father with disquiet. Denethor spoke of the Dark Lord of Mordor with the same cool disdain with which he would have named some mere captain of the foe. Ecthelion did not know if it was a mark of courage or of arrogance.

'If she is of age and her parents do not object, there is nothing to prevent the match,' said Ecthelion, trying to focus on the matter at hand instead of his concerns for the state of his son's heart. 'Would you forbid it even in the face of Beleg's consent? Is that an act worthy of a great lord?'

'It is a needful act, and I will do it if none other will,' said Denethor boldly. Then he frowned and went on with more subdued puzzlement. 'I had thought you would take my part in this, Father. Surely you never intended these mercenaries to wed the daughters of Gondor and to dilute the blood of our forefathers?'

Ecthelion looked at his son, saddened by his want of understanding. Denethor had never liked this policy, it was true, but it was a hard thing to learn that he did not see its value. 'I intended them to make their home among us,' he said. 'Wedding is a part of that. A man may face danger for silver coin, but he will only face death for love of his family.'

Denethor looked at him, grey eyes tempestuous and noble features drawn down into a grim scowl of disapproval. For a long moment he did not speak. Then he tore his gaze away.

'Very well,' he said, with the unfeeling cold of a Captain accepting a misliked order out of duty alone. 'I shall tell Beleg that there is no impediment to the union in your eyes. Yet if evil comes of it, I will demand that this precedent be stricken down.'

'If evil comes of love, we shall have more to fear than half-caste children,' said Ecthelion softly.

_lar_

Dusk was drawing nigh when Thorongil reached the Great Gate. It was still open wide, allowing the outward flow of folk who had come to the city to transact their business. There were farmers driving wains or pulling handcarts that had been filled with sacks of flour, dried peas, or like unperishibles, which would command a higher price now than they had in the autumn. Cottage weavers and potters and other small craftsmen were returning to their homes with unsold wares. As Thorongil passed into the shadow of the wall, two noblemen on horseback clattered through and forced him to dance backward into the ditch to keep from being trampled. He followed them with his eyes as they cut out across the fallow fields.

In Rohan he would never have been thus disregarded, renown as he was for his service to the King. It was a stark reminder of his willful toppling of his fortunes. That he had set his mind to it did not free him from doubt, and it was such petty indignities that were likely to rankle most keenly.

He scrambled back up onto the roadway, boots slipping on slick dead grasses, and he came up to the Gate. There were four guards before it: two on each side. On the ramparts above were half a dozen more, not all alert to their watch. The ones on the ground were, however, and one of them stepped into Thorongil's path.

'Do you dwell in the city?' he challenged. 'I do not know your face.'

'As if we could remember every face,' one of the men above muttered to his partner. Doubtless he thought his comment too low to be heard, but Thorongil's ears were as sharp as his eyes.

He could have taken the implication in those words and bluffed his way through, but that honour would never allow. He did not wish his service in Gondor to begin with a falsehood, however inconsequential. The wisest of his kindred had taught him with no uncertainty that such lies exacted their price in the end.

'I do not,' he said courteously, meeting the guard's eyes but keeping his own meek and veiled. Years had passed since he had drawn malice with a stare too bold for his ostensible station, but the memories lingered.

'It's late to be coming in for business,' said the guard. 'And if you're here to buy you'll find most of the shops closed and the markets sparse. You haven't time to get as much as a cold loaf before we shut the gates with you inside them. Best go home and come back in the morning.'

Thorongil considered his answer for a moment, as clearly the soldiers expected. 'I thank you for your forthright advice. Yet I have no business to guide me hither, nor have I come to buy – not even a cold loaf,' he added with a thin twitch of a smile. 'I have no home to which I may return, and I seek entry into the White City that I might alter that circumstance.'

Thus qualified, it was no lie. He could not return to his home at present, not with his labours yet unfinished and his education incomplete. Still to make such an admission aloud left a hollow in Thorongil's breast, as if he had by speaking somehow sealed his long discerption from those he loved.

'We have no need of vagrants here,' said the guard, stern but not cruel. That was well. 'Have you some skill to offer the folk of Minas Tirith?'

'I have many skills,' Thorongil said, raising his head a little. 'I hope to offer them not only to the folk of Minas Tirith, but to the Lord Steward of Gondor himself. It is said that he welcomes into his service those who are willing to aid in the defence of his lands, if they be worthy.'

The guard raised his eyebrows. Until that moment he had taken Thorongil for one of his countrymen: a citizen of Gondor coming in from some other fief to seek his fortune in the great city. It was a natural assumption, for his looks and colouration were as commonplace here as they had been exotic in Rohan. Now he was known for what he was: a stranger to this land seeking a position in the service of the Steward. From speaking with Thengel of his old friend, Thorongil knew that not all in Gondor liked Ecthelion's practice of welcome. He wondered now if this soldier might be among that number.

'They must be proved worthy,' the guard warned. 'It is not a matter of strolling up to the Gate and demanding a place.'

'I understand,' said Thorongil equably, though the condescension in the man's voice was hard to take. Again he reminded himself that he had chosen this route into the city. He might have come mounted upon a fine stallion with a mare in tow, clad like a lord with the gifts of the King of Rohan in his saddlebags. Instead he had decided this way was best. He must uphold that decision and prey upon no man for its repercussions. He was learning, at least, what they made of their aliens.

The guard looked him over again, eyes lingering long upon the torn knee of his hose and the mudstains ground into his garments. Then he beckoned to one of his compatriots. 'Show him to the provost,' he said. 'See he does not wander.'

The other man, younger than the first and with very blue eyes, nodded as he murmured; 'Yes, sir.' Then to Thorongil he said, curtly; 'This way. Follow me.'

Thorongil followed, passing through the deep shadow of the Gate onto a broad street lighted by the lamps of nearby buildings in the gathering gloom. There was a squall of iron and a grinding of heavy hinges as the Great Gate was drawn to behind him. The resounding _clang_ of the huge locking bar made his pulse quicken with more than the startling noise. He felt a hot surge of mingled eagerness, apprehension, and potent resolve. He was now within the walls of Minas Tirith. What came next he could not say.


	2. Detained

**Chapter II: Detained**

Thorongil was led up the main road and along a side street to a low stone building. It backed onto the city's second wall but stood nowhere near the Second Gate. The lamp above its heavy oaken door was quenched, which seemed unpromising. But his escort marched up the three steps and hauled open the door, shooing him inside with an impatient flick of the hand. Reading the signs, Thorongil did not hesitate. He put his lead foot on the second step and overlept the third with scarcely a stretch.

He found himself within a smoky and ill-lit vestibule. It was warmed by a lone charcoal brazier that was not really adequate to dispel the night's chill. It sat close by a much-abused table in the rear corner of the room. This had the gouged and battered look of a surface onto which arms were frequently and carelessly flung. There was a low-burned candle in a wooden dish, and in the pool of its light sat another guard. He was clad like the men at the Gate in a simple livery of worst-black.

At present he was hunched low over the table, tucking into an unremarkable meal. In his eagerness to reach his destination, Thorongil had not paused to hunt in three days. He had eaten the last of his latest catch the afternoon before, and yet despite his hunger he could scarcely smell the food. It was long cold, doubtless brought from a garrison kitchen at some distance from the provost-house.

'What's this?' asked the seated man through a mouthful of bread. He looked up as he spoke, but did not straighten. His posture and his broad features gave him the look of a disgruntled bull.

'Another of Ecthelion's Follies, come looking for a post,' the younger guard said irreverently. Thorongil surmised this particular turn of phrase was common among the soldiers of the First Level, to whom all such strangers surely applied. 'This one claims he's got _many skills_.'

The other guard let out a bark of laughter. 'Has he, now? Well, is following an order one of your skills, longlegs?'

'Verily,' said Thorongil, refusing to bristle at the disdainful words and tone. He did not prostrate himself so far as address the soldier as _sir_. From the youth's easy mode of address the two were of equal rank – a rank that Thorongil would likely be sharing soon enough.

'Then lay down your arms,' said the guard, indicating the tabletop. 'All of them. Before you think of some clever trick to hold any of them back, I can promise you we'll find them in the end. Then it will be the worse for you. Cooperate, and if your story's believable you'll have them back soon enough.'

Thorongil said nothing to this, but unbuckled his belt of sturdy Riddermark leather that he might slide his sheath from it. He bore a long knife, not quite a short sword but near enough for a man with his reach. He laid it down neatly so as not to hasten the table's demise. Then he slid his pack from his shoulder and fished within for the little paring blade he used for precise tasks: filleting fish, trimming his nails, and the like. So as to give the doorwarden no quarter for complaint, he produced also his small bundle of wire snares. There were martial uses to which such things could be put, if not honourable ones.

The two guards looked at one another with shared disbelief. ' _All_ of them,' the man at the table repeated.

'I have no others,' said Thorongil. 'I thank you for your words of warning, but that is all the weaponry I possess.'

'Are you a bowman, then, who lost the tools of his trade?' asked the young guard, baffled.

'I can use a bow at need, and with adequate precision,' said Thorongil; 'but foremost I am a man of the sword.'

'Yet you don't have one?' said the other man. 'I've never met a sell-sword without a sword to sell.' The youth snorted his amusement.

'It is my skill with a blade that I offer, not the blade itself,' said Thorongil. 'Surely there are swords enough in the armouries of Minas Tirith that one can be furnished for a soldier at need.'

'Already making demands, are you?' chuckled the older guard. 'I think you'll find that won't get you far. Most of your sort swagger in talking a fine game, and then it comes out that they used to be tanners or turnip farmers.'

'I have been neither,' said Thorongil equably. He could countenance a little mirth at a stranger's defence with greater grace than the contempt he had glimpsed at the gate. 'And I demand nothing save that my case is considered. I believe I can be of use.'

'Right you are, then.' The man got to his feet with a grunt and went to a side door. Without knocking he thrust it open and leaned over the threshold into a somewhat brighter room.

'Lieutenant? We have stranger out here. Heard His Lordship's invitation and reckoned it was meant just for him.'

From within came an irate voice. 'What, at this hour? Why did they let him through the Gate? He would have kept 'til the morning.'

Thorongil's youthful escort was shifting uncomfortably from one foot to the other, eyes lolling longingly for the exit. It was no easy thing to stand and listen to unfair criticism, prohibited by rank and post from voicing any defence.

Taking pity on the boy, Thorongil shouldered the onus upon himself. 'You have handed me off, and seen to it I did not wander,' he said quietly, as if merely curious. 'Will they not be wanting you back at the Gate?'

The guard looked enormously relieved, but he managed to sound almost casual when he spoke. 'I suppose I ought to go, now you make mention,' he said. 'You're the provost's problem now, anyhow.'

'I am,' said Thorongil obligingly. He watched, not without some amusement, as the boy made a hasty retreat.

The sound of the door swinging closed brought the other guard's head whipping around. When he saw who had departed, the incipient anger left his face. 'Go on in: the Lieutenant will see you now,' he said, motioning for the door in a mockery of courtly manners.

'I thank you,' Thorongil said as he passed. His own comportment need not suffer for want of reciprocity. The guard snorted softly, but stepped back so that his arm stretched to keep hold of the door handle. Once Thorongil was over the threshold, the guard yanked it closed.

This room was not so different from the other: sparsely furnished, poorly heated, and showing the hard wear of many years. In place of a table there was a desk, and against the wall across from it a hard, narrow bench. Behind it sat a stern-looking man with indifferently brown hair and a thick but closely trimmed beard. He too displayed the worst-black livery, well worn and beginning to fade to walnut at elbows and shoulders. A lieutenant he might be, but he was one who sat the evening watch in a provost-house in the lowest level of the City.

As Thorongil was taking his measure subtly, moving not even his eyes, the Lieutenant was looking him over in his own turn. His assessment was not so circumspect: it was obvious what he made of the ill-fitting and mud-stained garments, the torn hose with the scabbed knee showing through the rent, and the tousled hair that Thorongil had not thought to put right before approaching the Gate. The careful gauging of the soldier's thoughts distracted somewhat from the sting of being thus regarded.

'I am Bregold, Lieutenant of the Twelfth Company of the Guard,' the soldier said. 'It is my responsibility to question those who come to claim the places offered by His Lordship the Steward, Ecthelion son of Turgon. It is for me to deem whether you are fit to be considered for his service. Do you understand?'

'I do,' said Thorongil neatly. It might have been merely a closing note to the introduction. It might have been an attempt to gauge his lucidity. But he thought it most likely that the question was a means of determining whether he understood the Common Tongue. 'It is my honour to be thus considered. I thank you for your attention to the matter, particularly given the lateness of the hour.'

A flash of irritation rippled across Bregold's face, but he did not speak to it. He reached into one of the niches beneath the desktop and brought out a sheet of cheap but sturdy parchment. It was discoloured in places, and had not been finely scraped. The lieutenant laid it out and pared his quill, then dipped it.

'Your name?' he asked.

'I am called Thorongil.'

Bregold's eyes narrowed. 'That's Elvish,' he said. 'Are you one of our men? If you have come to us from anywhere in Gondor you do not need to suffer this questioning or any of the rest.'

'I have come to you out of Rohan,' said Thorongil. 'Until this month I had never laid foot upon the soil of Gondor.'

'Hmph.' The soldier gave him another quick appraising look, then fixed his eyes back upon the page. 'What is your parentage?'

'I cannot say.' This question had been asked of him in the Riddermark, though seldom more than once. Less store was placed in lineage upon those windswept plains.

'What do you mean by that?' the lieutenant asked. 'Have you something to hide?'

Of course, he did, but that was an answer even more unacceptable than the bald truth. Thorongil shrugged one shoulder. 'My mother was a northern woman,' he said. 'I never knew my sire.'

'A bastard, then?' said Bregold bluntly. Thorongil gave no answer, but maintained his steady, guarded gaze. The lieutenant snorted softly and dipped his pen afresh. ' _Son of no man_ ,' he muttered as he wrote. Then he looked up again. 'You do not have the look of Rohan about you, and I ought to know. Near half the men we get come from Rohan, seeking their fortunes. They make good outriders but poor patrolmen.'

To this there was little to say. Thorongil was visited by a memory of his men, his bold and loyal éored that had followed him so fearlessly into battle. Ever had they been the first to charge, before the rest beneath his command. To hear such men spoken of with curt dismissal was an ugly thing to bear, but he held his tongue. He had chosen this, he reminded himself. It would not do to deport himself like an Undermarshal of the Mark; that would be deemed naught but insolence and harm his prospects, perhaps irreparably.

'Where were you born?' asked Bregold, making another cursory notation upon the parchment.

'Many leagues to the North, beyond Edoras and the realm of Thengel King,' said Thorongil. 'I came southward nine years ago, and have served Rohan since.'

'In the North? That's vague enough to be useless,' said the lieutenant. 'In what land?'

'I cannot say,' said Thorongil. 'Those lands have many names, both young and ancient. I do not know them all.'

This sounded far too much like the evasion that it was. The guard's eyes narrowed. 'What's the town nearest your birthplace?' he pressed.

'I have no memory of my birth, and cannot testify to its whereabouts,' Thorongil said carefully, treading the line between equivocation and falsehood and trying to balance so that if he stumbled he would fall upon the former side. 'I was raised in the shadow of the mountains, where there are no towns.'

'You're a woodsman, then? Or a farmer?' asked Bregold.

'I once sustained my life with the fruits of the forest,' said Thorongil. 'Now I am a soldier.'

'You claim you served in Rohan. Have you any proof?' the lieutenant said.

'I have,' Thorongil told him. 'May I take it from my pack?'

The man gestured impatiently that he should do so, and Thorongil dipped his hand in amongst his few spare garments. He found what he wanted at the very bottom, laid carefully where it would not be creased or mutilated in transit. He brought out the little packet, enveloped in leather and bound about with oilcloth and twine. He considered unwrapping it before yielding the letter, but he decided that was not fitting. He had not held the bare paper in his hands since he had taken it from Thengel to be placed in its cocoon. Now he placed it before the guard.

A flick of the penknife cut the string, and hands flung aside the wrappings roughly, with greater care for speed than gentleness. He drew out the letter, its unmarked front still a creamy white.

'Letter from your sergeant?' he asked. 'Your Captain, perhaps? It's good quality paper.'

Thorongil said nothing. The man turned the packet over so that the seal could be seen. The red wax was imprinted with the signet of Thengel himself, and above it was written in the letters of Gondor; _To my old Comrade and dearest Friend, Ecthelion son of Turgon, Lord Steward of Gondor_.

Bregold shot Thorongil a very sharp look. 'What is this?' he demanded.

'It is a letter of character from the King of Rohan,' said Thorongil, unable to keep a note of pride from seeping into his words. 'He deemed that I had served him well, and he wished me to bear his salutations to the Steward.'

The lieutenant looked uncertain, but he was not about to break the seal upon a missive addressed to his liege-lord. He laid the letter on the far corner of the desk, as if he feared it might burst into flame if handled too roughly.

'We shall see about that,' he said brusquely, trying to regain his composure. He looked down at the page before him and found his place again. 'So you came from Rohan and you were raised near mountains,' he grumbled. 'I suppose that's all I'm going to get from you on the matter?'

Thorongil inclined his head: not quite a nod, but an unmistakable affirmative.

The lieutenant scowled. 'You're as cagy as a Southron,' he muttered, but he went on without further inquisition into that most dangerous of matters. 'Have you any languages?'

'I speak the language of Rohan,' said Thorongil. 'The Elven tongue I can also ply, as it is spoken in Gondor.' He said no more of his others: of Quenya, of Andúnaic, of the less common Elven dialects and his smattering of the Dwarven language. The two he named were the most pertinent, and would be quite enough for the permanent record.

'Can you, indeed?' said Bregold. Switching seamlessly to Sindarin, he said; 'I know much of that tongue myself, for it is much used in the City. How did you come to learn it in the shadow of these wild northern mountains far from any town?'

His diction was fine but his accent coarse. In the same mode of speech, Thorongil answered far more smoothly. 'My mother spoke it also,' he said. Again that was true enough, though she had used it little until their retreat to Imladris.

'What kind of woman was she?' asked the other man, lapsing into Westron and narrowing shrewd eyes. He thought he had laid a clever trap.

'She was an honest woman and a loving one,' Thorongil answered, eluding the pitfall.

'I meant what sort: what race?' Bregold said crossly.

'Forgive me, Lieutenant,' said Thorongil mildly. 'Is that a question you ask all supplicants?'

This earned him a look of blackest anger, but it was tempered with chagrin at being caught out. The guard flipped his quill so that its vanes hissed against the desktop and a fine spray of ink misted the edge of the parchment. Irritated by this, Bregold snapped out his next question.

'Can you read or write at all, or are you ignorant of such things?'

'I can read and write in the Common Tongue and in both of the languages I have named to you,' said Thorongil, still trying to keep his detached demeanour. He was weary of this interrogation, and his questioner's antagonism did nothing to improve his mood. 'I can cipher also, and I can interpret musical tablature.'

'Well aren't _you_ a fine one?' the man sneered. 'I suppose you've got a whole list of gentlemanly skills to share with me.'

'I would sooner prove my skills than speak of them,' Thorongil said. 'Yet you may write that I am deft with a blade and that I can wield a spear well enough to be praised among the Rohirrim.'

Lieutenant Bregold frowned, but wrote it nonetheless. Last of all he asked; 'Have you travelled or dwelt in the lands of the Enemy, or walked upon ground held under the sway of Mordor?'

'I have not,' said Thorongil, very clearly. The guard made a quick notation and then signed his name at the bottom of the page. He turned the sheet and offered the pen to the newcomer.

'Just below mine,' he said. 'Mind you don't smudge it.'

Thorongil had been taught his letters by some of the most exacting masters in the world, and he had not smudged a document since inadvertently falling asleep over an exercise page at the age of ten. Still he kept his peace. He dipped the quill neatly and penned his taken name with the elegant husbandry of a scribe. Bregold had, intentionally or not, left him at a disadvantage in this: the nib of the quill was spreading and needed to be trimmed afresh. But compensation for a poor tool had also been a part of Thorongil's education, and when he lifted the pen his signature was immaculate beneath the other, lopsided one.

He straightened his spine and stepped back from the desk again. Bregold turned the sheet back and dusted it with sand from a small horn shaker. He blew it off in a wrathful little puff, and then got to his feet. In the corner stood his sword, belt dangling from the loops of the sheath. He girded it on and then collected both the record of the questioning and the sealed letter.

'Wait here,' he said, brandishing the latter. 'I need to ask of my Captain what is to be done with _this_. Do not touch the desk.'

Then he was gone. Thorongil had just eased out of his soldierly pose and was eyeing the narrow bench with avarice when a sound made him stiffen. It was the grinding of a heavy key in an iron lock.

He did not run to the door: he had more dignity than that. Yet when he heard the mumbled words on the other side die down to silence, he crossed the floor on whispering feet. He took hold of the ring that served as a handle, and drew slowly upon it, not wanting the guard without to see the door buck. It was locked fast.

He supposed he ought not to be confounded by that. He was, after all, an stranger in these lands. The Steward's proclamation may have been one of welcome, but caution was also warranted. Of course each man must be vetted, so the Enemies spies could not merely stride into the City on the strength of a claim they were men of worth. It was logical, and it was prudent. If it was also somewhat humiliating, that was his burden to bear.

Thorongil went to the bench and pulled it a handspan from the wall. Then he sat, leaning back over the gap to rest his shoulder blades on the cool stone. His legs he stretched before him, allowing himself a low sigh of pleasure at the relief of taking his weight off of them after a long day's journey. He folded his hands over the base of his breastbone and let himself relax against the wall. His head tilted back and he closed his eyes against the candlelight and the brazier's orange glow.

Now that he paused to consider it, the lieutenant's obvious misgivings were perfectly rational. Thorongil would have stirred doubts long before his elusive answers. From the moment he had admitted that he was not of Gondor, he would have, or should have, been suspect. A man of his looks – tall, dark, pale of skin with piercing eyes and lofty cheeks and a long, straight nose – who was not a man of Gondor would not be taken for distant kin from the North. The most natural assumption to draw was that he was in truth a Black Númenorean out of Umbar, or even Mordor. He had the look of Westernesse: that Thorongil knew perfectly well. There were only two enclaves from which such blood had come to Middle-earth: the foul and the Faithful.

He would not let it trouble him, he reasoned. There was no cause for anxiety. His tale was true, if incomplete, and the last nine years of his life were minutely accounted for. The letter would stand him in good stead, and if they were mistrustful enough to send messengers to Rohan, there would be nothing but proof. Now he need only wait for the lieutenant's return, and he would almost certainly be put through the next stage of the intake process.

That gave him pause. Now Thorongil remembered the warning he had been given: that concealed weapons would certainly be found, much to the deceiver's detriment. He had no arms to hide, but there was something else; something that would not escape the sort of scrutiny that could be relied upon unfailingly to turn up a blade or a dart.

He had let his pack slide down onto the bench at his side. Now he sat up and dragged it into his lap. In Rohan he'd found little cause to hide it, though never had he flaunted it. Here, such things might yet be remembered. Not by a lowly lieutenant in the First Level of the City, it was true, but likely by some. Such an article would be worthy of remark if it were found even by the unknowing, for with his bedraggled raiment and his want of material wealth it would seem strange that he owned such a thing.

He found it tucked into the leather wrapping of his little book of songs, just where he had placed it when packing his belongings in Edoras weeks ago. Drawing it out into the light, Thorongil looked upon the one heirloom of his house that he had dared to bring South.

The ring was of silver, untarnished and with a sheen that Elven smiths had perfected beneath the light of the Two Trees before the kindling of the Sun. The serpents and their crown of flowers stood out in intricate detail so fine and delicate that they seemed almost to deceive the eye. And the green stones in their perfect settings glinted as if with a fire of their own. It was the Ring of Barahir, that had secured for Beren the aid and amity of Finrod Felagund, that had survived the sack of Doriath and the razing of the Havens of Sirion. It had been passed from eldest child to eldest child in line unbroken through all the long years that the heirs of Tar-Minyatur dwelt in Númenor. On Elendil's own hand it had crossed the raging seas, and down the prime line of his blood it had travelled to be laid at last upon a young man's palm by one who had a claim to it as equal as that of Elros himself.

Yes, it was best to keep it from becoming an object of curiosity among the guards of the lower levels of Minas Tirith. Thorongil considered. Searching his pack would of course be the first measure of caution. Truthfully he was surprised they had not done so already. Yet to hide it on his person would avail him nothing if his suspicion proved out. He did not dare to secret it somewhere about the room, for he could not be sure he would ever again have access to this place. He could try to conceal it in the spine of his book, but he had bound it himself and he knew the leather cover was taut and well-filled. Briefly he considered knotting the ring into the hair at the nape of his neck, but of course that was folly. Even if they did not wish to search his every possession they were sure to check him for fleas before allowing him anywhere near a barracks.

Thorongil's pulse was quickening, and he was beginning to feel very much like a trapped animal. He closed his eyes and tried to calm himself. This was no crisis, no matter of life or death. If he was caught, the worst would be a barrage of awkward questions, and afterward he could find a safe place to hide the ring so that inquisitive parties could get no confirming sighting. Yet if he could just clear his mind a solution might present itself. It might. It had happened before. It might…

Scarcely had he drained all conscious thought from his head than his eyes snapped open. He looked at the ring, and suppressed a grin. It was a ring, after all: what else was it meant for but to adorn a hand? In this City of wealth and pretention, such a sight would be commonplace. Though it made a stark dichotomy with his clothes, his searchers would like as not find the silver star more interesting – and certainly in greater proximity. He knew no better way to safeguard his treasure. It was worth a try.

Thorongil slipped the Ring of Barahir onto the next-to-last finger of his right hand. Then, taken by another flight of inspiration, he turned it so that the richly ornamented top was in towards his palm and the far less remarkable lower arc of the band showed on the back of his hand. He curled his fingers casually inward and considered the effect. Yes, it truly might work.

Satisfied and with nothing more to fear, he sat down again to wait for Bregold's return.

_lar_

In the deep middle night, Denethor was wakeful. Lying abed beneath the damasked tester with its rich velvet drapings was out of the question, so he flung back the bedclothes and slipped his feet into the soft leather shoes he most often wore in the evenings. Not troubling with a candle, he moved by moonlight. The windows were shut fast and there had been a riotous fire burning in the hearth when he lay down to sleep, but now the embers had burned low and the room was cold. He could feel the chill of the smooth flagstones through the supple soles of his shoes, and icy fingers plucked at his back through the fine linen of his night garment.

There was a dark robe thrown over his customary chair by the fire. It was lined in vair, and it cut the deepest cold. Denethor shrugged into it now, drawing together the broad revers and clutching the front closed with one long and slender hand. The fur tickled his jaw, and he moved his head further into it so that an irritant became a comfort. In doing so he turned towards the windows. They seemed to glow with the diffracted moonlight spreading through a thick crusting of frost that coated the bottom of each pane, leaving a horseshoe of bare glass through which the night was still dark. It evoked the look of the vair, which was a strange thought to strike one in the depths of the night.

Denethor could not say what had awakened him. That meant it had most likely been one of the dreams. They still came to him at times, most often after a day of turmoil. Through the years they had become garbled, fragmented, and he was far better equipped to cope with them than he had been as a child. Still, when he could remember them on waking they would haunt him, and when he could not they always left behind this feeling of profound unease. It was as if the waking world itself was a dream, and the lapping fire, the wailing winds, the dark and sundering waters were the reality.

He turned his mind forcefully from such thoughts. His mother often said, in her fond but frustratingly naïve way, that he had been given a melancholic disposition. This both annoyed and amused Denethor, for he knew it was not the appraisal most would make. His men, for instance, would quite likely describe him as _choleric_. And his father…

That was the tempest that had tainted his day and laid open his mind to the dreams. The Council meeting had been a mockery of the process of government; all of them squabbling like fishmongers, talking at once and climbing over one another's words as though the loudest voice would hold the greatest sway. Only Adrahil of Dol Amroth had come out of the fray with his dignity unruffled. All through the three excruciatingly long hours he had spoken but once, and then the languid modulation of his tone had silenced them all – at least for a minute. When he had finished, they had to a man fallen back into the quarrel.

They had all been wrong to give into their furies and frustrations in what should have been a measured debate, but that was small comfort. It was Denethor's responsibility, as Heir and as Captain-General, to hold the Council on course when his father could not. And the sorry fact of the matter was that at times Ecthelion _could_ not. He was a patient man, and he well understood the hearts of men, but his desire to think well of all those about him had its disadvantages. Such had been the case today. Unsure in his own mind, he had wanted to hear each of them in turn; yet he had been unable to make any of them await that turn. Ordinarily that would have been Denethor's cue to seize the wobbling rudder and compel the others to behave themselves. But he too had been caught up in the heat of the dispute. He had railed with the rest, and he had relished it.

Aye, he had relished it.

He moved to the window, tiring now of the collar's silky caress so that he pushed it irately back from his cheek. Outside, the courtyards and gardens of the Citadel lay dormant. It had been an unremarkable winter, but it was viciously cold tonight: else the room would not be so chilled, nor the windows so thickly frosted, nor the glass radiating dull waves of cold that could be felt even at eight inches' distance.

Down in the enclosure before the Steward's House, a lone Guard was pacing. He had his shoulders slumped against the cold, and his hands in their sable gauntlets were buried in the pits of his arms for warmth. It was a most undignified posture, and Denethor made a note to discover who had been on watch this night and ensure the proper man was reprimanded. He could not see the Guard's partner, which most likely meant he was still at his proper post by the great front doors. That might make disciplining the offender difficult. If both refused to say which of them had been wandering, he would either have to punish both or neither. The first would make him look vindictive, and the second would make him look weak.

There was a third choice, and it was the one his father would make in his place. He could simply pretend that he had not witnessed this flagrant disregard for proper practices and let the matter slide. _Simply_. Only it was not simple to leave a matter unresolved, a problem unaddressed. If a lapse in discipline were allowed to continue, neglected either out of laziness or misguided sympathy, it would only continue to grow and to spread. Next the men on the stone allure above the Gate would take the excuse of a frosty night to duck into the guardhouse, abandoning their posts and leaving the Citadel vulnerable for the sake of a few minutes of warming their hands at a fire. It could not be permitted.

Yet still Denethor was troubled by the sure knowledge that his sire would not approve of such a reprimand. He would argue that the man had not abandoned his post, but was within the same line of eyesight he would have had from the door. He would say that it did no harm to let a Guard warm himself as best he could on a bitter night. He would smile in his forgiving way and point out that spring would be here soon, and the whole issue would dissolve with the passing of harsh weather. Even when he could not countenance his father's way of governing, it still stung Denethor to know he had the Steward's disapproval.

That had certainly been the case with the matter of the Easterling's marriage. Denethor had earnestly expected some support for his position: a stern nod of agreement and leave to do what must be done, not a gentle chiding for his inhospitality and an equally docile recitation of the lesson that loyalty could only be earned, never bought.

As Denethor saw it, the Easterling had more than enough reason to be loyal without plucking up a daughter of the realm for his own. He had been welcomed into the City, as no other Lord of the West would have welcomed him. He had been given gainful employment and a position of some respect. He had been fed, clothed, and sheltered by the grace of the Steward. He had been granted the chance of a life he never would have dared to imagine in Sauron's dominions in the East. He ought to be prostrate with gratitude, not demanding more.

The policy by which Ecthelion had thrust open the City gates to the rabble and paupers of the world had galled Denethor from the first. He had predicted no great good would come of it, and the years had proved him right. His father had hoped they might attract doughty warriors, skilled tacticians, leaders: men of might and accomplishment who would bolster Gondor in her fight against Mordor. Instead, most of the newcomers were nothing more than common soldiers or worse. Few had risen through the ranks, though the rewards for extraordinary service were generous. Of those few, most had come from Rohan.

All the declaration of welcome had brought to Gondor was a swell of men fit for little more than patrolling the back streets of the City and flinging their bodies upon the scimitars of the Enemy. It was a waste of time and resources that might have been put to better use elsewhere. Like the dream of an impenetrable wall, it was nothing but pap to soothe the fears of the masses. _Look_ , they could say: _look how our Steward stops at nothing to guard us! Look how he turns the Enemy's own men against him! We need not fear!_

Denethor felt that a rational measure of fear was a good thing. It kept one alert and ever-watchful. As for the business of turning Sauron's men against him, that was absurd. An Easterling was an Easterling, just as a mad dog was a mad dog. Both might seem benign for a time, but sooner or later each would bite. When this man Jamon bit, Denethor did not want to see an innocent girl of Minas Tirith caught between his jaws.

He had seen no choice but to tell Beleg of his father's position, and the fool of a Captain had actually been pleased. Ah, well. There was more than one way to discourage a marriage. Denethor's first duty was to his people; to protect them and to see to their best interests. It was not in the best interest of the merchant's daughter to wed this swarthy stranger. He had only to help her see it.

Sleeplessness and dark dreams forgotten, Denethor rounded the bed and strode out into his study. Deftly he lit the candles upon his worktable, and he sat. Taking a piece of paper from a drawer, he began to compose his orders.

_lar_

First the candle burned out. That was when Thorongil began to wonder whether the lieutenant intended to return at all. He sat quietly for a while longer, mulling through his own thoughts with a patience learned in the long, dull hours of fixed watches upon roads or simple little villages. He was a patient man. He could wait.

But the glow from the brazier grew dimmer also. He rose from the bench and stirred it, trying to bring some life to the embers. It was little use. They were dying. Soon the only light would come in from the small windows set high in the wall. These were unglazed and unshuttered, and they let in the draught of an increasingly frigid night. A hard frost was setting in, and the water in puddles and catchment-pails would be frozen by morning. Thorongil hung near the brazier while the last of the charcoal seared away to ash, relishing the warmth while he could. Then he wrapped his cloak snugly about his shoulders and went back to the bench.

This time he lay down upon it, and the feeling of stretching his backbone was nearly as delicious as resting his legs had been. For a time he was content, neither quite dozing nor entirely wakeful with one foot up on the bench and the other hanging off its end. But it was too narrow to make a comfortable bed, and eventually its rough edges began digging into his ribs. Furthermore, he had not eaten in almost thirty hours and he was ravenous. His stomach growled and grumbled, unused to such deprivation after nine years of regular meals. Thorongil reminded himself that he had known hunger ere this, and it had not killed him yet. Still, the discomfort remained.

He had water in his pack, and he brought out his bottle to drink. That helped a little, and certainly eased the tightness in his throat. This was absurd. It was one thing to lock a man in for an hour or two while you went for orders concerning an unusual situation. It was quite another to neglect to return.

His unease was mounting, but he did not realize how apprehensive he had grown until he found himself knocking upon the door that led to the vestibule. It was not a frantic knock, only a light rapping. But he had not intended to do it.

When no answer came from without, Thorongil was forced to face the truth. He was trapped here until morning, shut up in a small stone room with a heavy door. The lieutenant's desk and the long-cold brazier made it no less a cell. He was being detained – possibly until the letter could be examined, more likely because they truly did believe him to be a spy.

But no, that was not reasonable. If they believed him to be a Black Númenorean sent on a mission of espionage and villainy, they would not have left him here in an empty guardhouse. He would surely have been brought to a proper cell somewhere, locked away fast behind iron bars with a watch upon the door. It was far more likely they simply did not care for his discomfort or his unease. He had been insolent enough to turn up at the end of the working day, and Bregold had simply done what he thought the men at the Gate should have: left the stranger to keep 'til the morning.

Thorongil paced the length of the room, as much to work off his agitation as to warm himself. He wondered how many other men had bided here, knowing neither their fate nor the cause of this detainment. He wondered what a man out of Dunland or Near Harad would make of such a predicament: a man, perhaps, who did not speak the Common Tongue and could not even have the frugal comfort of knowing he had given clear answers to the provost's questions. There had been talk in Thengel's court of men who had escaped even the slaveholdings of the Black Land to claim asylum under Lord Ecthelion's edict. What would such an unfortunate think of this treatment?

He had the advantage of understanding what was going on, of knowing with a commander's confidence it was most likely lethargy, not malice, that had left him here. He had a letter addressed to the Lord of the City from his most trusted ally and the friend of his youth, now in the hands of the Guards and doubtless beginning its winding journey to the White Tower high above. He had a good cloak and warm clothing on his back (torn hose and chilled knee notwithstanding). And he had no one's welfare but his own to consider. He was fortunate.

Again Thorongil sat, this time eschewing the uncompromising bench for the chair behind the desk. As instructed, he touched neither the table nor any of its contents. But he did turn the seat so he could stretch out his legs. He flipped his hood up to shelter his head from the cold, and drew his cloak tight about his lean body. Crossing his arms to hold it thus, he tucked his chin and tried to sleep a little.


	3. Petty Indignities

**Chapter III: Petty Indignities**

The house of Esgalad son of Esgalion was situated on a quiet but populous street in the fairest quarter of the Sixth Level of the city. Upon his marriage, the son of the Lord Warden of Pelargir had been offered his pick of lodgings within the bounds of the Citadel, but he had declined. He preferred the well-appointed home that bore in ancient stonework above its door the name of his family. Even unto the time of the Kings, they had held that house, and now it was occupied all the year round.

Esgalad himself had not crossed the threshold in three months. He was abroad from Minas Tirith, in command of his father's soldiers as they bolstered the strength of the beleaguered Army of Ithilien. It was his wife for whom the house was maintained in beauty and luxury, for despite the present delicacy of her constitution she preferred to remain in her own home rather than to bide beneath the roof of her father. Telpiriel wife of Esgalad was a woman who knew her own mind, and who bent it for no man.

Ecthelion loved his second daughter dearly, though oft times there had been strife between them. In her youth, Telpiriel had seen her sire as more of an impediment than a partner to her happiness. It had only been upon his unexpected support of her desired marriage that she had come back into the easy amity they had known in her girlhood. The twelve years since had been glad ones for Ecthelion, at least with respect to her.

It had become a habit of the Steward's to take breakfast in the house of Esgalad once a week, and as his duties allowed Denethor would join his sire. They were both present today, though it was unlikely the Heir would be able to linger long. Labours of state left little time for leisure.

Telpiriel hosted them now in her antechamber rather than the handsome dining hall below. The healers had forbidden her to go too far abroad from her bed, or to spend more than four hours of the day outside of it. Although they made much of assuring their patient and her sire that the precaution was merely the usual practice with a lady of her age, Ecthelion knew better. His own wife had been brought to childbed at the very close of her fertile years, far older than their daughter, and no such measures had been required for her. The healers feared for Telpiriel, and most of all for the child she bore. She had lost four children throughout the years of her marriage: three to miscarriage, one to stillbirth. If this little one lived, he would be her firstborn.

She was merry today, presiding over the little table heavy-laden with delectable dishes. Her husband had a great fondness for fine foods, and the cook he employed was among the best in the City.

'You look well, my sister,' said Denethor, pouring the wine for each of them in turn. 'Almost I would believe this to be high summer, not a bitterly cold winter's morning.'

'Is it cold?' Telpiriel asked, eyes twinkling. 'That explains why my maids have taken such care with the fire through the night.'

'Aye, cold and grey,' said Ecthelion. He knew her confinement was wearing upon his daughter's patience, and he saw what Denethor intended. If she appreciated the weather's foulness, she would pine less for the open sky. 'I should not have roamed so far myself without such pleasant company to tempt me forth.'

'I caught one of the Guards from his post last night, pacing the courtyard before the house,' said Denethor. He reached for one of the light white cakes he so favoured. 'He looked quite the fool, hunched over with his high helm drooping. Discipline has grown lax of late.'

'Lend the man a little pity, my son,' Ecthelion chided gently. Too often his Heir despised rather than pitied others in their weaknesses. 'Even the Fountain is frozen: it was a merciless night. You do not intend to single this Guard out for punishment, do you?'

Denethor shook his head, but in his eyes Ecthelion could see that he had at the very least given it earnest consideration. 'I shall leave the matter to his Captain,' he said. 'He is of the Third Company, and they are of the three the least compliant. It will do them good to have a reminder of their duty.'

Ecthelion considered as he ate of his meat. It was very tender beef, well braised with cloves and nutmeg. This too was a command of the healers: Telpiriel was to take liberally of fresh-killed flesh. 'I think that wise,' he said. 'Raenor will see to it that there is no second infraction without singling the man out to be shamed before his fellows.'

'Perhaps a little shame would do him good,' Denethor muttered, but he shrugged one strong shoulder. 'Yet I am decided. In Raenor's hands be it.'

'I have had a letter from Celebril,' Telpiriel said brightly, changing the subject either for diplomacy or out of boredom. 'All is well in Lamedon. Angbor is learning to ride, and has taken several very fine tumbles. He merely picks himself up again and scolds the poor pony before remounting.'

Ecthelion grinned at this image of his only grandson, whom he had last seen two summers ago. He hoped this year to make time to travel the southerly fiefs, as much to see his daughter as to oversee his holdings. 'And the girls?'

'Well,' Telpiriel assured him. 'Growing more willful with each passing day, it seems. I have been accused of exerting a subversive influence.'

At this all three smiled, and Denethor chuckled. 'Nay, sister: it is I who am the model of bullheadedness for the family.'

Ecthelion was surprised by his son's good humour. Seldom would he admit to his willfulness, even in jest. It seemed the cold night had frozen his temper and cooled the memory of yesterday's quarrels. Ecthelion was about to take his part in the comfortable familial banter when there came a soft rapping on the anteroom door.

'Come,' called Telpiriel gaily. One of her maidens looked in, keeping the door for the most part closed. The mistress of the house wore her long night robe with the pearl embroidery: suitable for a family breakfast, but not for receiving strangers. 'What is it?'

'Forgive me, my Lady, my Lords. There is a runner here from the House of the Guard. He says there is a man come from provost in the First Circle in search of the Steward.' The maiden spoke smoothly and without bashfulness. She was a daughter of the lesser nobility, and although being in the presence of her Lord was cause for greatest courtesy she was not confounded by it. 'It is concerning a new applicant to His Lordship's service.'

Ecthelion gave no outward sign, but within he sighed. For him to be consulted, there had to be some grave problem with the claimant's situation. After so many years, even those few who came from Mordor were dealt with readily by the men under his command. Welcome though he did all men brave enough to travel from afar on the hope of a better life, Ecthelion could have wished for a more opportune time to be called away. Telpiriel was joyful and Denethor was smiling. What father would not wish to linger in the happiness of his children?

But Denethor rose. 'I will go,' he said. 'It can be no matter grave enough to require your immediate attention. Stay and talk with Telpiriel.'

Their eyes met, and for once Ecthelion had no difficulty discerning his son's intention. He too was glad to see his sister merry, and desired to keep her that way as long as possible. Addressing the complications of the policy he so hated was not burden enough to make Denethor disrupt that.

'Very well, Captain-General,' said Ecthelion fondly. 'Go now and discharge the duties of your office.'

'I shall, sire,' said Denethor, and he bowed a neat salute. Then he strode from the room, mindful not to open the door too far.

_Lar_

Once one had mastered the art of snatching snippets of shallow slumber in the saddle, it was possible to sleep almost anywhere. Thorongil awoke with a start to the _bang_ of the outer door. A number of voices, muffled by oak and stone, were engaged without. He raised his head, kneading the knots from his neck as he climbed out of the chair. He slid it back to its original position and crossed the room, settling down upon the bench and affecting an indolent posture. When the door was opened, he wanted it to look as though he had been waiting patiently for hours.

It took longer than he expected for anyone to come for him. The noises of the morning's business went on without, but despite his discomfort Thorongil restrained himself from hammering on the door. It would not do to seem anxious.

He was stiff, from the less than optimal sleeping position and the cold. Dawn was breaking beyond the empty windows, but the room was deeply chilled. Thorongil's lower jaw quivered, teeth not quite chattering. His rapid exertions had awakened the pangs of hunger afresh, and he had other discomforts in need of relief. He drank the last of his water, rinsing the sour taste of the night from his mouth. And he waited.

At last he heard the key scraping into the lock. He made a last rapid survey of the room, and whisked off his hood with one hand. Then he fixed impassive eyes on the entrance.

To his surprise, it was opened by the Lieutenant who had locked it the night before. Bregold's eyes were red-rimmed with inadequate rest, and his raiment had been hastily donned. Called from his bed in the small hours, Thorongil thought: doubtless to finish what he started and in spite of the fact he had sat the previous watch. Their eyes met, and Bregold looked away. He did not cross the threshold: he was holding the door for the two men behind him.

The first was tall and grey of hair, smooth-cheeked and saturnine. He wore livery cut to the same pattern as the other guards, but of wool dyed a noticeably better black. Upon his arm was sewn a badge of purest white: the heraldry of the Steward of Gondor. This was surely Bregold's Captain.

Behind him came a younger man, reedy and nervous-looking. He wore a long, simple robe with wide sleeves, and he carried a small leather case clutched to his chest. He had the look of an academician, and not a very prosperous one.

'This is the man?' the Captain asked unnecessarily.

'This is he,' Bregold confirmed. He came into the room now, standing back a careful pace. Behind him Thorongil could see several men now occupied the room without, gathered in a group and talking very purposefully. No doubt they were divvying up the day's duties.

The Captain looked Thorongil over with a cold eye. 'Do you not stand when your betters enter a room?' he asked.

'Forgive me.' Thorongil rose hastily, cursing his forgetfulness. He was accustomed to being the one for whom others stood: in Edoras he had been outranked only by the Marshals, the King and his family, and a few of the upper nobility. 'I am not at my best. It was a long night.'

'If you can't bear that, you will not be much of a soldier,' Bregold muttered.

The Captain raised his hand for silence, and the lieutenant coloured deeply. The scholarly young man scurried near to the desk and pressed his hip against it, as if he found the solidity of the furnishing a comfort. Still the grey-haired man studied Thorongil.

'You claim that you have come from Rohan,' he said, his tone not quite disdainful but near enough. 'You are not of their blood. Your colouring aside, the men of the Mark are never so tall.'

Thorongil had affected his customary posture, as he had not the night before. Now he was standing at his full height, shoulders squared and head upraised. It was the proper stance of a soldier, but it did invite the eye.

The Captain looked around until he caught Bregold's gaze. 'Fetch a scuttle and light the brazier,' he said. 'It's colder in here than in the street. As for you—' He turned back on Thorongil. '—we shall find out soon enough if you are lying about your history. In the meantime we will get on with the rest of your initial intake. Where is your baggage?'

'Here, Captain,' Thorongil said. He bent to retrieve his pack, remembering just in time to keep his right hand at his side. 'This and my pouch are all I have.'

'Take that off as well, then,' said the older man. He took the stout canvas satchel and rounded the desk, then upended it unceremoniously so the newcomer's scant possessions tumbled out across the writing surface. He mashed the pack between his hands, feeling for any sign of something hidden in seams or lining.

Thorongil unbuckled his belt as he had the night before, but this time he did not trouble to slide off the article he wanted. He coiled the thick leather strap and laid it, pouch and all, on the desk. He watched as the captain pawed through his belongings, giving each shirt the same attention he had given the pack. He unrolled the pairs of knee-high woolen socks that the men of Rohan wore, and he looked with puzzlement at a shabby hood with a low collar in place of a cloak. Such a garment was common in the Riddermark, but evidently not in Gondor. He unwrapped the book roughly and held it aloft, wagging it imperiously.

'What is this?' he asked.

'A collection of tales and songs,' answered Thorongil. 'I wished to bring with me something of the lore of Rohan.'

'Lore?' snorted Bregold. 'Never have I heard the horsemen known for their knowledge.'

'Nonetheless they have it,' Thorongil said mildly. 'It is seldom writ down, which is yet another reason I wished to make such a record.'

'You _made_ it?' The Captain was now turning through the pages with their graceful letters and not quite as elegant illuminations. The creation of that volume had occupied many idle hours over the course of several winters. What had begun as a diversion had become a work Thorongil would be proud to present as a gift to his foster-father when at last he returned to the North. 'It is fine work for a Rider. Quite the _scholar_ , I see.'

'I thank you for your praise,' said Thorongil, though he could see the puzzlement in the man's eyes deepening towards suspicion. It was a strange skill for a mercenary to possess.

The man turned the book over and ran one thumb up the spine, rasping across the neat waxed stitches with pressure enough that any irregularity would be readily felt. Thorongil's right hand closed into a fist over the twining silver serpents. As well that he had not tried to hide the Ring of Barahir there.

The Captain tossed the book idly onto the heap of clothing, now yanked out of its neat rolls and crumpled carelessly. He put aside a wooden cup carved with a scene of wild horses, and a bowl with the same motif. He lingered a moment over Thorongil's comb, which was skillfully made and intricately decorated. 'What is this?' he asked, picking up the next item of interest.

'It is a spoon.' It took a great effort not to impart those words with a derisive incredulity. For a wild, almost giddy moment Thorongil wanted to laugh. What did the man think that it was?

'It is silver,' said the Captain. He gestured at the other, more rustic objects. 'Are you a thief of trinkets and baubles, then?'

Thorongil jerked his chin proudly. 'I am no thief,' he said, his voice now cold. Bregold came in just as he spoke, and looked from him to the Captain in alarm. 'The spoon was a gift from a faithful comrade, in thanks for a service I did him. It is mine.'

The Captain gave him a long, disbelieving look, but did not question his honesty. He laid the spoon in the bowl and sifted through the last few things on the desktop: a whetstone, the stub of a candle, a pair of braided points coiled together. Then he opened the pouch and pulled out its contents: flint and tinder, firesteel, toothpick, and the leathern purse that held a modest assortment of small coin. He surveyed the disarrayed miscellany once more, and then braced his hands on the sides of the desk and stared their owner straight in the eyes. Carefully Thorongil guarded his gaze, not wishing to offer any challenge, however implicit.

'Strip,' the Captain commanded blandly.

Thorongil had suspected this was coming, and he was not surprised. In the Captain's position, however, he would have approached the matter differently. The brusqueness of the order notwithstanding, Bregold was only now lighting the fire to warm a bitterly cold room. The door stood wide, and the men without were clearly interested in the goings-on within: they kept stealing glances when the Captain's eyes were drawn well away from the threshold.

He might have protested on either of these grounds, but Thorongil had no interest in prolonging this business. The sooner he was searched, the sooner he could be back in his clothes and hopefully moving on to whatever the next stage of this process might be. He brought his hands to his throat and undid the pin of the star that clasped his cloak. Eyes still fixed on the Captain's, he took one long step forward to place the ornament upon the desktop.

As he had hoped, all three men turned their attention upon it. The Captain picked it up and turned it in his hand. Thorongil made good use of the distraction, flinging his cloak down upon the bench and deftly unlacing the front of his cote. It was the action of disrobing most likely to draw attention to his hands, and that he was anxious to avoid. If the simple cast spoon had awakened the Captain's suspicions, an ornate and bejewelled ring would be damning.

'How did you come by this, then?' asked the man, feeling the brightly burnished surface.

'I bore it with me when I came to Rohan,' said Thorongil, still whipping the long lace from its holes with flying thumbs. 'It was given to me when I came into my manhood, and I have worn it since. It suits my name.'

Bregold chuckled, setting down the poker and holding his palms out to the meagre warmth of the newly-lit charcoal. 'So it does!' he said. ' _Thoron – gil_ , Captain: star-eagle.'

'Thank you, yes, Lieutenant. I too know the Elvish tongue,' the older man said dryly. He tilted his head and looked again at Thorongil. He was now sliding his arms from the sleeves of his cote, mindful of the narrowness of the garment's shoulders. 'As there is no Eagle Star in the heavens, I surmise you accord your name some other significance.'

'The star you see before you,' said Thorongil. 'In Rohan I was likened to the bird for my keen eyes and my swift reflexes.'

The Captain's eyes flashed, and almost before the movement could be seen he threw the brooch at its owner. Thorongil had both arms behind him, tugging the cuffs over his hands, but he whipped his right around and caught the star with the _clink_ of silver on silver. Inwardly he cringed at the sound, but he maintained his level gaze. He had not even moved his head to track the trajectory of the ornament.

The Captain curled his lip appreciatively. 'That claim is no lie, at least,' he said.

'I do not lie,' Thorongil professed tightly. His tone earned him a twitch of a scowl, and he knew that he had to withdraw a little. Now in shirtsleeves, he sat upon the bench and put aside his Star of the Dúnedain. 'Have you a bootjack, sir?' he asked with appropriately deferential courtesy.

'No.' The answer was cold and just a little smug.

The Captain watched with a set face as Thorongil fought with his smooth-fitting boots, cold-stiffened as they were, but there was unmistakable gratification in his eyes. A coil of crawling embarrassment slithered through Thorongil's innards, and he tried to ignore it. That was the purpose of this treatment, of course: to show him his place and to be sure he understood that unproved foreign recruits were not entitled to their self-respect. So he fixed his attention on the boots and tried to ignore the many eyes turned upon him: those without had given up all pretext of working, and both Bregold and the scholarly man were watching as well. Of them all, only that last seemed uncomfortable with the goings-on.

He might have stayed seated to unknot the points that held his hose, but Thorongil was by this time bristling with a thin steel thread of obstinacy. He rose and set about the task with an economical swiftness that gave at least the illusion of confidence. Rolling down the hose and stepping out of them was the worst part of the proceedings yet: the stone floor was like ice beneath his bare feet, and his toes curled in, recoiling from it. Only his body linen remained. He removed his shirt, sweat-stained from long use and grubby from the road. Then with all the dignity of his blood and his upbringing, he stepped out of his braies and stood naked in the chill of the room.

And there he continued to stand while Bregold, under his Captain's watchful eye, searched each garment minutely. Thorongil fixed his eyes upon the stone wall before him and kept his right hand curled casually into its loose fist. No one had remarked upon the ring, and he intended to keep it that way. The rest of his attention was occupied in trying not to shiver, for the heat of the brazier had not dispersed so far into the room yet. He kept his head held high and restrained the urge to turn to see how the rifling of his clothing was proceeding.

At last Bregold straightened up into the periphery of Thorongil's sight. 'Nothing but old cloth and grime, Captain,' he said. Someone in the other room sniggered.

'Very well,' said the older man. 'Get on with it.'

Thinking the instruction was for him, Thorongil began to turn. Just in time to save himself a reprimand, he saw the startled alertness on the face of the man in the scholar's robes. He approached the unclothed stranger and took hold of his left wrist.

'I am Midhon, the provost healer,' he said, almost nervously. He was feeling for a pulse. 'I must ensure you are sound of body and free from any disease that might render you a danger to the folk of the city.'

There followed a thorough and inelegant physical examination. Thorongil's chest was sounded, his limbs assessed for their straightness. His feet received careful scrutiny, though thankfully there was little interest in his hands. The healer looked into his mouth, checking his teeth with a blunt tool that tasted strongly of iron or blood. For this Thorongil had to bend forward, and when it came time to check his ears he had to sit. The bench was rough against his bare skin, but his feet were now accustomed to the cold of the floor.

Midhon then took a fine comb from his packet of tools and made a very thorough search of Thorongil's hair: first on his head and then that of his body. Some of the observers had lost interest in the spectacle, but others lingered avariciously. Doubtless they were curious about the stranger, but it was also cathartic for men of lowly estate to watch one still less privileged than they. Bregold was certainly satisfied by the indignities to which the irritating newcomer was being put.

At last the healer stepped back, and Thorongil was given the offhand order to clothe himself again. He did so mindfully, arranging his garments and fastening them properly. He was determined not to seem anxious to be dressed. Before lacing his cote, he put on his cloak and fastened it once more with the star. Its fullness obscured his hands. No one had noticed the ring.

Last of all he pulled on his boots, knowing better than to ask for a shoehorn. No sooner had he finished than the Captain gestured at the clutter on the desktop. 'Clean away your rubbish,' he said scornfully, as if it had been Thorongil who had made the mess. Then he glared at the men in the next room. 'Disperse to your duties!'

Not wishing to draw any interested eyes, Thorongil did not trouble to restore his simple garments to their compact rolls. He merely shoved everything into his pack as quickly as he could, and once more used the cover of his cloak as he girded himself. No one had said anything about returning his knife, but he did not ask. He was far more interested in whether or no they would offer him anything with which to break his fast. From ravenous he was drawing on to famished. But no one said a word of food.

The Captain sat down behind the desk, waving off the healer. Bregold stirred the charcoal, now glowing hotly and at last beginning to warm the air.

'Sit,' said the Captain. 'We can do no more until I have word of what is to be done with you. Where were you born?'

Thorongil sat, managing to keep from sighing aloud in frustration. The interrogation had not ended, it seemed, and the questions had not changed. He worked through them tiredly, giving all the same answers he had given the night before. Always he kept his tone level and respectful, though by now his frustration was a knot of gall in his breast.

_lar_

Denethor met with the man from the First Level in the office he kept at the House of the Guard. This building, just above the Sixth Gate, was the centre of administration for the city's forces, and much of the Captain-General's daily labours were carried out within it. He found his secretary already in the office and hard at work. Valacar was a spindly man in his middle years, and he had been in Denethor's service for most of the younger man's life. He had begun his work as a tutor in mathematics, and had advanced to his present post as his master's duties began to warrant it. Of all his servants, Denethor trusted no one more than Valacar. Even his groom of the body was not privy to the confidences he shared with his secretary.

'Greetings, my Lord,' Valacar said as he entered, inclining his head respectfully but not hopping down from the tall stool that stood before the clerk's table at which he always sat. There was a tacit understanding between them that such signs of subservience were not required when there were no witnesses. 'I trust your Lady sister is well?'

'As well as can be expected,' said Denethor. 'I pity her maidens in attendance: it will be a long five months. I want you to make arrangements for me to meet with the Master of the Guard. I must establish a regimen of remote maneuvers for the City Companies.'

'Is there cause for such maneuvers?' Valacar looked up from his work again, brows knitted.

'Nothing proximal,' said Denethor. He looked to the window. It faced eastward, but it was not high enough aloft to afford a view of anything but the upper storeys of nearby buildings and the sharp delineation between the Sixth Wall and the sky. 'The men have been static too long, kept to routine duties. Their skills will stagnate. A week or two sleeping rough and working through battle drills will do them good. I shall send the companies two at a time. The Second and the Ninth shall go first.'

'The Second and the Ninth,' said Valacar, as if committing it to memory. Then conversationally he added; 'The Easterling is in the Ninth Company. The one who is to be betrothed.'

'Is he, indeed?' asked Denethor, allowing himself a curl of a half-smile on the side of his face turned away from his secretary. He sat down at his broad desk. His carefully devised plan of action was designed to arouse no one's suspicions.

There was a knock at the door. At Denethor's word, a lanky pageboy peered around it. 'Captain-General?' he said. 'Are you ready to see the man sent by the Provost-Captain.'

'Send him in,' said Denethor. He squared himself with the desk and affected a posture of sternest command. Soldiers of the lower levels were in awe of their high commander, and it was an image that was useful to maintain.

The Guard came in. He was a young man with broad features and a shock of unattractively indifferent brown hair. Mixed heritage, and not of the undilute stock of Westernesse. He bowed a low salute, the brownish-black cloak falling forward as he did.

'What is it?' Denethor demanded, not interested in pleasantries.

'M-my Lord!' the man squeaked. His eyes were wide and wondering. Yes: he was in awe of his Captain-General.

'Speak,' said Denethor, less curtly this time. 'Why have you been sent?'

'I… I was sent to seek the Steward, my Lord,' the soldier said. 'But the Guards at the Seventh Gate said, they said that he was not within.'

'So I am well aware. I have the authority to act on the Steward's behalf in all matters pertaining to the defence of the City,' Denethor said coolly. 'Whatever you were sent to ask of him, you may ask it now.'

'Yes, sire. I will, sire. There is a man, sire. One of the men that His Lordship… one of the ones who come to… I mean to say…'

'One of the sell-swords enticed by the Steward's promise of rank and reward,' Denethor enunciated coolly. 'Is it one of the present brood, or a newcomer?'

'He is newly come: last evening,' said the man. He was speaking very briskly now, but Denethor did not slow him. He had no wish to send the soldier back into his stammering. 'I was on duty when he was brought to see the Lieutenant. He is tall and dark, with pale skin. He says he comes from Rohan, and he seeks a place. He claims he was known to King Thengel, and he gave Lieutenant Bregold this.'

He held out a letter, sharply folded and remarkably clean. Its seal was unbroken. Denethor took it with a little _snap_ of the paper and looked at the words written above the circle of wax.

'The Lieutenant feared to open it, addressed as it is to His Lordship the Steward,' the Guard said. 'He thought it best to bring it to the Citadel, even if it is a fake.'

'He was right to do so,' said Denethor, trying to school his irritation at the man's ignorance. 'It is a grave crime to violate the private papers of the Steward. No one should open a letter addressed to him, save in his very presence and by his command.'

The Guard flushed crimson. 'Yes, sire. Of course, sire.'

Denethor flicked three fingers, gesturing for silence. The scratching of Valacar's quill had ceased. He too was intrigued.

Denethor studied the little parcel in his hand. The paper was costly and very white. It had been carried with due attention: there were no smudges or waterstains, and the corners were still sharp. The seal was in red wax: the galloping horse of Rohan beneath a rayed sun. He knew that seal well. Often enough in his boyhood he had seen it upon missives out of Lossarnach, adorning letters from his father's beloved friend. There was no mistaking it. Every detail was as it should be, even to the horse's want of a left ear. An overenthusiastic journeyman had tried to file off a burr left in the casting, and obliterated the ear instead.

And if the seal was true, the provenance of the letter might be also.

'He comes from Rohan,' said Denethor decisively. The letter was too well-kept to have been stolen or diverted. If it had not been given to the man in question by Thengel himself, it had certainly not travelled through many hands on its journey. 'What does this man say of it?'

'That it is a letter of character, and that he wishes to serve the Steward as he served the King of Rohan,' said the Guard. 'He says he has skills to offer, and that he is a swordsman. He is reluctant to speak of his parentage, but in all other respects he seems a worthy candidate. The lieutenant would have inducted him at once, if not for the letter. It seemed… unusual.'

'Unusual it may be, but this is genuine,' Denethor said. Even he would not presume to break the seal of his father's letters, but the contents could be examined in their own good time. The Guard needed an answer to take back to the provost, and Denethor wanted him gone before the Master of the Guard came for his orders. It would be best if the men of the Ninth Company had no warning of their deployment until the morning of their march.

'What is the lowliest vacancy we have?' Denethor asked, turning to his secretary.

From the shelf above his table, Valacar brought the Roll of the Guard. It contained a current manifest of every man in service to the City. He opened the volume near the lower companies, and turned through a few pages. 'There is a vacancy in the Tenth Company, my Lord. Under Captain Minardil.'

Denethor nodded. 'That will do.' He looked to the bull-faced guard. 'Tell the provost the man is to be assigned to the Tenth Company. He may have a fortnight's trial. In the meantime I will give his _letter of character_ to the Steward, that he may judge for himself the worthiness of his newest soldier.'

'Yes, sire!' said the Guard. 'The Captain thought perhaps you would, I mean the Steward would, want to see the man and speak to him.'

'There is no need for that,' said Denethor dismissively. 'See to it he is processed in the usual way: one cannot expect special treatment on the strength of a seal alone. Tell the provost to provide him with the pass-words to the first two Gates, but no more. He is to be properly accoutered for his position.'

'Yes, sire,' the man said. Then he took a deep breath and said; 'He says he has no sword.'

This brought a crease of puzzlement to Denethor's proud brow. It was unusual even for the most destitute of applicants to arrive weaponless. The lands from which most came were debatable, and even those out of Rohan walked uncertain roads in these dark days. But it was not worth any close consideration when there were more important matters to fill the day.

'Then have Captain Minardil provide him with one,' he ordered. 'It need not be grand, but a Guard must have a sword. Now leave me. I will see that the letter reaches its rightful owner.'

The man made his obeisances, muttering his thanks and his clumsy flatteries. When the door was closed at last, Denethor leaned back in his heavy chair with a sigh.

'Why must men of simple means always be simple-minded as well?' he asked wearily. 'What have we come to, when a soldier of Gondor cannot even present a coherent report without tripping all over his tongue?'

'He was afraid of you,' said Valacar placidly. He had a way of saying things that no one else would dare without ever seeming to criticize. 'A tall man, dark and pale, out of Rohan. He sounds an interesting fellow.'

Denethor made a sound midway between a chuckle and a scoff, and he tossed the letter up towards the lefthand corner of his desk. 'Another of my father's sell-swords,' he said dismissively. 'More fodder for the Enemy's vanguards, nothing more.'

Yet he wondered. A letter of reference from a neighbouring monarch was no small thing. He would have to make time to assess this man before his trial period was over. Even unseen, this stranger was plainly unusual. Never before had one of his father's supplicants aroused his interest save in irritation. It was a curious thing to find himself fascinated by one of the beggars, even at a remove. Time could be made to test him.


	4. The Measure of a Man

**Chapter IV: The Measure of a Man**

Minardil, Captain of the Tenth Company, was a young man. He was younger than Thorongil, in fact, though only enough that he looked somewhat older. Thorongil wondered whether he would have been assigned to this Company if anyone had troubled to ask his age instead of judging it by his countenance. It was not customary in most forces for a difficult recruit to be placed under a commander who was his junior. Given their continued rough treatment, the men of the provost clearly thought he had the potential to be very difficult indeed.

Bregold told him the passwords for the first two Gates of the city, and it was clear from his relish in doing so that this was less freedom than supplicants were generally afforded. Only later did Thorongil learn that there were amenities in the Third Circle that were unobtainable in the first two. Whether the restriction was an act of justifiable caution or deliberate spite he could not have said.

It was the Lieutenant who was sent to show Thorongil to the garrison of his assigned Company, and he did so with all speed. There could be no ambiguity about his motives in that, at least. This was not Bregold's watch to sit, and of course he was anxious to get to his bed. He strode through the streets so swiftly that it was almost impossible for Thorongil to take note of their turnings. There would be difficulty later, when he had to find his way about unaided, but he did not protest. He too was eager for this business to be done. He could not reasonably hope for sleep himself, but surely once he was installed in the garrison there would be a chance of something to eat. His hunger was gnawing at him, distracting his mind and fraying his patience.

The garrison of the Tenth Company stood between that of the Ninth and that of the Eleventh, down a narrow street branching off the main thoroughfare. It was long and narrow, with rows upon rows of shuttered windows on the upper floor. Inside the doors there was a spacious entryway clearly meant for hasty arming: there were badly scuffed benches and low stools along both walls, and in a corner someone had leaned several shields. Beyond that room was a hall with tables and benches adequate to seat a hundred men. It was warmed by a lofty fireplace on one long wall, and Thorongil longed to hurry over to the hearth.

Bregold stopped just inside the door instead. 'Stay here. Don't move. Do not make trouble,' he said curtly. He had brought with him Thorongil's knives and the parchment on which he had recorded the answers to their first interview. Taking all these with him, he crossed the room and disappeared through a side door.

There were a few men in the room, gathered in small clutches at two of the tables. Most looked up curiously at the stranger in his strange clothes, and Thorongil tried to offer them a small smile of greeting. There was not much in him that felt like smiling, however, and he feared the effort was rather pathetic to look upon. Most of the men went back to their talk and their — here Thorongil swallowed painfully against a mouthful of spittle — noon meal. From this distance and beyond hands curled about wooden trenchers Thorongil could not see what the men were eating, but he could smell it. They had hot food, if the provost did not.

Obeying orders with blind precision had never appealed to Thorongil. It was not the mark of a leader but of a minion. He had been told not to move, but he refused to interpret that literally. Obviously Bregold's chief concern was that he should not leave the hall. So he hurried across to the fire and stood gratefully in its glow. Slowly the bite in his bones began to dissipate. There had been little hope of warming up properly after the chilling search, and he was grateful indeed for the thick logs and their leaping yellow flames.

He took the opportunity to slip the Ring of Barahir from his finger and into the little sack of tinder in his belt-pouch. He doubted he would be searched again so soon, and the ring would be safer off his hand. He still felt rather smug about displaying it so flagrantly before unseeing men. It took some of the sting out of his treatment, unworthy though the sentiment might be, to know that his misusers were not particularly bright.

Presently the side door opened again, and a young man came striding through with Bregold in his wake. He wore a captain's livery of middling black, the white badge upon his arm. He had in his hand the sheet of parchment, but of the blades there was now no sign. As he came he said; 'Thank you, Lieutenant. You are free to go now.'

Bregold made his salute and was gone so quickly that he might have been mounted on wheels. The Captain approached the new man, stopping at the other corner of the hearthstone. Once again appraising eyes raked over dilapidated garments, but this time rather than lingering on the rents or the stains they paused at the nearly-new boots. With a thoughtful sliding of the jaw, the man took a step forward.

'I am Minardil, Captain of the Tenth Company and apparently your commander,' he said, holding out his arm.

The part of him that remembered the customs of Bree-land almost sent Thorongil to shake his hand, but he remembered just in time a piece of minutiae that Gandalf had once shared. Instead of reaching for palm or wrist, he gripped Minardil's forearm. The Captain reciprocated, and they broke off the contact.

'I am Thorongil, sir,' he said. 'It is my privilege to be assigned to your company.'

'We'll see about that,' said Minardil with a deprecating grin. 'Soldiering is no easy life, even in the City.'

'I am familiar with the soldier's life,' Thorongil said equably. 'I served nine years in the éoreds of Thengel King.'

'So Bregold said.' Minardil quirked the corner of his mouth. 'Rather, he said that was your claim. I do not think he believes you.'

'Does it not seem a little less than credible?' asked Thorongil, trying his luck with an ironical lilt. 'I have not the look of the Rohirrim.'

'You have not,' allowed Minardil. 'Yet this Queen and the last are of our kindred. There are folk of Gondor dwelling in her city. It is not for me to question your origins: the Steward has given his word that all men shall be welcomed, regardless of birth, if they are found worthy. The Captain-General has deemed it fit for me to make that assessment of you, and therefore I shall. Yet if there is anything you wish to tell me that is not included in this… _illuminating document_ , I will gladly hear it.'

His dry tone brought a grin of amusement to Thorongil's lips. He thought he might truly be able to like this Captain, and he was at least making an attempt at fair-mindedness. After the ungenerous reception he had been given below, this felt almost like a pledge of lasting friendship. Certainly it did much to wash away the copper taste of humiliation that was the morning's legacy.

Thus Thorongil decided he ought to share something more, even if it was not of any particular significance. Good faith should be met with good faith, and there seemed to be too few among the City Guard who lived out that principle in their daily toils.

'Three languages are noted there,' he said, indicating the parchment. 'It is inaccurate.'

Minardil looked down at the page, searching for the relevant passage. He clicked his tongue ruefully. 'Exaggerate a bit, did we? Thought perhaps it would give you some advantage?'

'No. I do not boast falsely under any circumstances. I have no need,' said Thorongil. It was much easier to keep his tone modulated in the face of easygoing conspiracy and a knowing wink than before accusation and disdain. 'What is missing from that report is that those three are not my only languages. I speak also the High Elven tongue, fluently.'

At this the Captain glanced up in some surprise, a spark of disbelief flaring for a moment before being doused entirely by force of will. 'I see,' he said, and he smiled. 'That's more than I can lay claim to. But why not admit to it? The High Elven language is much esteemed in Gondor, and plied often by the learned.'

'Have I the look of a learned man?' asked Thorongil. He let his lip curl in doleful mockery. 'I did not think I would be believed.'

'Ah.' Minardil nodded his head sagely, once more looking to read the sheet of parchment. 'You say very little of yourself, but I suppose a man is entitled to his secrets. How good are you with a blade?'

'As good as I can be and no better,' said Thorongil. He wanted to test the waters a little further, and he was rewarded for this evasion with a short laugh.

'You have a saucy tongue in your head, I see. Best keep it to your off-watches and well out of the earshot of the Captain-General.' Minardil took one last quick look at Thorongil's raiment. 'I suppose the first order of business is to find you some proper clothes. You cannot go around claiming membership in my Company and looking like the rag-picker's boy.'

Thorongil fought to disguise his dismay. Finding livery to fit him would be an onerous project: it certainly had been when he first came to Rohan. So ended all hope of a timely meal. He had not come to the City expecting to be fed, but he had thought it not unreasonable that he would be given freedom enough to seek for his own provender among the bakeshops and meat-merchants. Instead he had been allowed neither liberty nor sustenance.

Something of his thoughts must have shown in his face however, for Minardil's expression softened from good humour to genuine sympathy.

'Forgive me,' he said kindly. 'The Steward's expatriates are seldom assigned to positions in the City, and I'd forgotten. The men from abroad are always hungry. Follow me: the kitchen will be serving right now, and I have not taken my nuncheon either. We may break our bread together.'

'Thank you,' said Thorongil, almost breathless with sincerity. It was drawing on to two days now since last he had tasted food, and whatever the afternoon brought would be far more bearable on a full stomach.

He followed the Captain – _his_ Captain – to a narrow corridor off the main hall. Here a hatch opened on a bustling kitchen. Through it a young servant gave them laden plates and a modest platter of bread and cheese. A measure of beer was drawn for each of them, too, and Minardil balanced his awkwardly as he led the way to the nearest vacant table. Thorongil set down his own dishes quickly so that he could relieve the other man of his burden before the tankard might spill. This earned him simple but sincere words of thanks. Minardil sat without further ceremony, allowing Thorongil to do the same.

No feast at the high tables of the Meduseld had ever tasted finer to Thorongil than that simple dinner. There was roast salt pork and mashed turnips, some sort of stewed grain that he did not recognize, peas well-cooked in a savoury liquor, and a wrinkled but sweet-tasting apple. The cheese was pleasantly sharp but not overpowering, and there was a pat of pale winter butter. And of course there was the bread. It was made of dark flour and rye, but both had been well-sifted and the loaf carefully baked so as to be dense but not hard. It filled his belly wonderfully, and it was plain that this meal was truly intended sustain him in comfort until the next one. Even the lowest soldiers of Ecthelion, it seemed, were well (if not always warmly) fed.

When at last he had eaten, he went with Minardil to a warehouse some distance away within the Second Circle. Here a quartermaster looked Thorongil over dubiously when he removed his cloak.

'I don't know what we've got to fit you,' he said. 'You're tall as the Lord Heir himself, and we've never turned out coarse worsted and cheap black for _him_. What did your mother wean you on? Bean poles and hollyhocks?'

'Do your best, Iston' said Minardil, patiently but with a note of warning in his voice. 'We can always have something made to fit later. For the moment he just needs something whole to his back.' When the man disappeared into the room lined with laden shelves, the Captain turned to Thorongil. 'It's a blessing that you won't need boots,' he remarked. 'Those are very fine workmanship.'

'I value a good pair of boots,' said Thorongil. 'I made sure to leave Edoras well-shod.'

Minardil studied his face. 'I can understand the temptation to pretend to greater standing than one possesses, particularly when seeking a great lord's asylum,' he said. 'Yet if this tale of yours is false, it will be far worse to allow it to go further. If you have some other truth to tell me, do so now and I will protect you with all my power.'

Thorongil felt anger rise hot and horrible in his throat. He swallowed it firmly and set his jaw. Was this not what he had wanted? To be taken for less than he was, and treated as they would treat any wandering soldier? Was he not now seeing precisely how the dispossessed and the alien were welcomed in Anarion's City?

'I do not lie, Captain. Nor do I pretend to anything more than I have earned. My service to Thengel King was long and loyal, and his testament to that service is genuine. So it will prove, if any take the trouble to confirm it.' He fixed Minardil with unguarded eyes, that the other man might see in them his honesty. 'Your pledge is generous, but it is unwarranted. I have spoken naught but the truth.'

For a moment longer the Captain held his gaze. Then he looked away, abashed. 'Forgive me,' he said. 'The Steward's policy has brought many strange folk to the City. Not all have proved trustworthy, and these are uncertain times. No doubt the provost Guards did not make you welcome.'

'Not particularly,' Thorongil said tartly, before he could school his tone. He pinched the bridge of his nose and allowed himself a tired sigh. 'I suppose to them men such as I are naught but a nuisance, drawing them from their regular duties and heaping more work upon them.'

'That is not an unfair summation,' said Minardil. 'Yet also the men of those Companies are wary and filled with suspicion. They must be, for theirs is the first line of defence against the agents of the Enemy, but it does not make them earnest emissaries of the Steward's intent. It was never His Lordship's wish that foreign recruitment should prove a burden on his men, nor that those who came to answer his invitation should be met with distrust. Yet such has been its effect.'

'Is the Steward aware of this?' asked Thorongil. Long was the road that wound down from the Citadel to the Great Gate, and even in the far smaller and lest constrained city of Edoras news from the low places moved upward only against a fearsome current. It was easy for one whose subjects were counted by the score to disdain a leader for ignorance of the actions of those under his command. It was possible that Ecthelion did not know.

'I know that the Captain-General is,' Minardil admitted, looking sidelong as if loth to speak against his Lord. 'It is he who preaches the policy of caution. There was a spy found among the men of the Fifth Level at Midwinter: a craven slave of the Enemy who had been working among us for nearly two years. Now all are wary.'

Now Thorongil understood, and he was glad he had not raged against his ignominious treatment. This was a city beset by war, the chief seat of a land fenced in on three sides by foes both great and lesser. In Rohan there had been only the one front, save when a band of disordered brigands came out of the empty lands to the northwest. Here, the wolf was on the threshold and his teeth were bared to strike.

'And the spy? He was one of what the men below call Ecthelion's Follies?' he asked.

Minardil cringed. 'I do not like that term, nor do I permit my men to use it. Free folk must be free to question the wisdom of their lords, but they should not make a mockery of them. Do not speak it again, Thorongil; not even in disdain.'

'I understand,' Thorongil said. 'I give you my word I will not, nor will I suffer others to do so in my presence.'

'That is too much to ask of a new man,' Minardil said. 'I do not wish to make your transition any more difficult than it must be.'

Just then Iston returned, arms laden with half a dozen woollen tunics. 'We might as well try these,' he huffed. 'I don't know that any of them will fit any better than that thing you've got on, but we can try.'

Unlike the guardroom where he had last disrobed, this chamber was well warmed by a good fire and two corner braziers. Thorongil removed his cote, and made an attempt at one of the brownish-black ones that he had been brought. It was too short in the body: not surprising but still irritating. As he reached for another Thorongil was very glad indeed that he had eaten. The foul mood brewed by an empty belly would have made this a gruelling ordeal of self-control.

The fourth garment was not too bad a fit: it reached his knees if not his wrists, and although it was rather too full in the body it did not look overly disheveled. The Captain professed it acceptable, and Iston went next in search of hose and canions. At Minardil's invitation Thorongil sat, and while they waited he was given a brief summary of the duties of the City Guard. He listened intently, committing to memory the system of timekeeping employed in Minas Tirith, the rules regarding soldiers' off hours, the expectations while on guard or patrol. It was all very standard and much what he had expected, save that penalties for even minor infractions seemed more severe than was common among the Rohirrim or the Dúnedain of the North.

'We shall have you on light duties for the first week,' said Minardil at length. 'One watch per day instead of two, that you might take some time to acclimatize yourself to the city. I will assign you a fellow to teach you the work, but if you have any questions they may also be brought to me. It is my belief that a Captain should serve his men as well as his Lord, and not be served by them.'

'So I too have always held,' Thorongil said. He had made up his mind: he liked this man, and it would be easy to respect his commands. Perhaps the fortunes he had so wantonly sabotaged were taking a promising turn.

_lar_

In the end Thorongil did go forth clad as a Guard of the City, albeit one whose cuffs did not meet his gloves nor his hose reach high enough upon his legs for comfort in the cold. Yet he felt far less conspicuous when he left the storehouse in Minardil's company, his northern clothing in a coarse sack in one hand. He wore his own boots and belt and, to his surprise, his silver star. It seemed that men of the Guard were not issued with ornaments of any kind, not even a simple pin to clasp their cloaks: each had to provide his own or shift as best he could without.

A tailor had been brought to take his measure for a properly fitted set of livery, working quickly with a sliver of chalk and a length of string knotted at regular intervals. He seemed somewhat surprised at Thorongil's familiarity with the process: the sell-sword moved arms or legs or neck precisely as required a moment before the instruction was given. The work was swiftly done, and the garments themselves would be ready within the fortnight.

Minardil took him now to the armoury that supplied the Ninth, Tenth and Eleventh Companies. In a room behind the amourer's desk, Thorongil was instructed to choose a sword. There were dozens to consider, hung four deep upon pairs of long pegs that supported the hilts. The blades were naked: sheaths were a separate requisition. All were very ordinary weapons, simply adorned if at all. Many were very shoddily made, but others showed signs of great skill and workmanship. Thorongil walked along the wall, considering each in turn.

'If you came from the service of Thengel in Rohan, why have you no sword?' Minardil asked. He was leaning on the doorpost with his arms across, watching with idle interest. 'It seems to me the one thing a man would wish to bring with him.'

'I intended to do so,' said Thorongil. 'But I found a more fitting disposition for it.'

'How so?' asked the Captain.

Thorongil took from its peg a long sword with a hilt wrapped in leathers. He turned from the wall to test it in its hand. 'In Rohan, each Captain is responsible for the outfitting and maintenance of his éored – his Company of Riders. More prosperous men possess their own steeds and weaponry, but those who do not must be furnished with the necessities of war by their commander.' He frowned. The blade was true, but the balance was off. He returned the sword to its place.

'A similar practice exists among the knights of Anfalas,' said Minardil.

Thorongil made a sound of mild interest. He was again examining the weaponry with a sharp eye for faults. He knew better than to think this was a simple matter of equipping a recruit. This was a test: his choice of blade would tell much of his experience and his common sense.

'Because of this, éoreds are variously supplied according to the wealth of their Captain and the means of the Riders themselves. There was among my… there was an éored established by a small landholder, wealthy in horses but poor in coin.' Thorongil took another blade and tested it. This one was well-balanced, but the hilts too cramped for his hand. It too was returned to the pegs. 'Yet he was courageous and loyal, as were the men under his command. They were poorly armed and humbly clad, and yet they rode as fiercely as any other force beneath their Undermarshal. When I took my leave, I bestowed my sword upon a certain young Rider of that éored who had been making do with a hatchet in place of a blade.'

'Surmising that here we would provide you with one, if you were without,' Minardil mused. 'Yet why did the Marshal, or Undermarshal, not see the men provided for?'

'Both did, in so far as they were able,' said Thorongil. It was no lie to omit that he himself had been the Undermarshal overseeing that éored; his sword a part of that provision, 'Yet resources are finite, and the danger unending. It was not possible to see every man armed as best he might be, but one at least I left better off than before.'

'You are a curious soldier of fortune,' said Minardil. 'Few men I know would part with their sword for anything.'

'It was never truly my sword,' Thorongil murmured, his thoughts wandering unbidden to another blade, a useless blade, lying upon a bed of velvet in a valley far away. Yet his eyes were still travelling the assortment before him, and they snagged upon an item of interest.

It hung at the back of the pair of pegs one to the left of the corner. Its hilts were tarnished and the blade flecked with rust. The wrappings on the grip were worn and cracking. Yet there was something remarkable about the sword.

Carefully he lifted it from its place, and when his fist closed upon the hilts he knew what had caught his attention. The slender length of the blade, the distinct curve of the guards, and the simple embossed star that ornamented the pommel: all these spoke of an age greater than most of the other swords. And the steel, blemished though it was, was an alloy of Westernesse. This was a sword as old at least as the line of Ruling Stewards, and it fit into his hand as if it had been wrought to fit him. The blade was perfectly balanced, not only for the weapon in itself but for a tall and long-armed wielder. The rust was superficial, and the bindings could be easily replaced.

Thorongil made a tight, controlled sweep with the sword. It sang through the air, unlovely though it was, and he could feel how it would be to bear it on the field of battle. He turned to the Captain, and he knew his eyes were flashing with boldness and a yen for the cold thrill of battle. In Minardil's expression he read as much, and he tried to reign in his eager joy. Somewhat abashed he lowered the blade, laying it across his left palm.

'This one,' he said. 'I choose this sword.'

All speech stricken from him, Minardil nodded.

_lar_

Establishing the parameters for field maneuvers proved a more complex task than Denethor had anticipated. He had done it before, of course: many times. But always he had either executed them with an army already encamped, or in brief excursions of the Guards onto the Pelennor. It was another matter entirely to dislodge two housed companies, to provide for their needs some five leagues from the City, and to devise a cogent plan for a fortnight's training. Had his only concern been to thwart the Easterling's romantic pursuits, Denethor would have abandoned the idea almost at its outset as too costly and unnecessary.

But as he worked with the Master of the Guard, it became ever more plain that some such measure was needed for the good of the realm. The men of Minas Tirith were growing complacent, comfortable in their set routine of watch and leisure, post and home. The lone Guard on that biting night was not exceptional. Often men throughout the City would stray from their posts, or engage in talk with the common people when they were supposed to be alert upon the walls. Most Captains still abhorred lateness and disciplined those who came languidly to their duties, but many other minor offences went unremarked. It had been long since the last threat to the townlands about Minas Tirith, and the alertness of the Guards of the City and the Citadel both had lapsed.

There was much support for his plans among the senior Captains, for Denethor consulted them as well as the Master of the Guard. He had not yet disclosed his intention to send the Second and Ninth Companies first, but that was all he had reason to keep to himself. The rest would benefit from diverse opinions and the weight of many men's experience. When implemented, Denethor did not doubt the undertaking would prove both valuable and illuminating for all concerned.

Yet with these matters to attend to, it was nearly a week before he gave any further thought to the new sell-sword who claimed to have the favour of the King of Rohan. It was a chance slip of a chart while tidying his desk on the morning of the sixth day since he had breakfasted with his father and Telpiriel that brought the man to mind again. For there, concealed until that moment beneath the lists and diagrams and pages of intricate notes and stratagems, sat the white paper packet with its undeniably authentic seal.

Denethor picked it up and turned it in his hands, torn between irritation at the distraction and a gnawing guilt – as if he were once more a small boy trying to conceal the effects of some act of lazy postponement. He liked neither sensation, but the latter least of all. He was the Heir of the Steward of Gondor, next in line to rule. He was the Captain-General of her armies and her great strength in battle. Yet he felt like a child because he had forgotten to pass on a letter to his father.

'See this is brought to the Steward,' he said curtly, flinging the missive down on Valacar's desk with no regard for the glistening ink on the ledger the secretary had been amending. 'If any seek me, they may be told I am abroad in the lower City. If they have matters too urgent to await my return, do as you see fit on my behalf.'

This was a trust he would have laid on no man but Valacar, and that was not unappreciated. His secretary gave some quiet word of assent, but Denethor was already striding from the room, swinging his fur-lined cloak about his shoulders as he went.

The day was crisp and cold – not so cold as it had been some days before, but still very brisk. Such folk as were about in this early hour of the afternoon went forth well bundled and moved as quickly as they could, scurrying from one warm doorway to another. On the walls and in the Gates, the Guards tried to keep thawed as best they could, but Denethor noticed as he passed through the Citadel that not one man of the Third Company was so much as a half-stride from his designated post. Raenor had done well in correcting the deficiency among his men.

Down into the city he walked, taking long confident strides despite the sheen of ice upon the cobbles. The cold air filled his lungs and invigorated his mind, leaving his senses sharper and his resolve set. He might be hard-pressed to explain his delay in remitting the letter to the Steward, but when Ecthelion asked about the man who had borne it Denethor would be ready. He would be able to provide a report on the stranger, and his own opinion on his fitness or unfitness to serve Gondor.

The garrison of the Tenth Company was quiet at this hour. Those who were not on watch were either sleeping or with their families. But the Company's page was dozing on a bench in the gathering hall, and he awoke with a start to Denethor's sharp address.

'Yes, sir! How can I help you, sir!' the boy said crisply, scrambling to his feet and tugging his tunic straight. He was about sixteen, with the rangy half-starved look of a healthy boy who has shot upward more rapidly than he could grow outward. His eyes widened when he recognized Denethor. The Captain-General was known throughout the City: not one member of the Guard did not know him on sight – save perhaps the strange arm-for-hire he sought.

The page saluted deeply. 'My Lord!' he said, more breathless than before. 'How may I serve you?'

'Where is the new man?' asked Denethor, not in the least interested in dissembling. 'The one who claims he has come out of Rohan.'

The boy's face brightened. 'Thorongil! The Eagle of the Star, the men are calling him. He's off watch at the moment, sire. Shall I fetch him?'

Fetch him, thought Denethor, and give him time to prepare himself to meet his master? No. Far better to come upon the man unawares and judge how he deported himself backfooted.

'Show me to his booth, then,' Denethor commanded. 'I will come to him.'

'Oh, no, sire, he's not abed!' said the boy. 'He never sleeps the afternoon watch. He's down in the court with some of the others, working. There's not many can keep pace with him, but—'

Denethor was already striding away, up the hall instead of back towards the street. The far door opened on a narrow courtyard floored in bare dirt instead of stone. Each Company had such a place, where the men might spar and hone their skills. All were supposed to make use of it six out of every seven days, but this practice too had become erratic. So it was with some surprise that Denethor stepped out into a yard crowded with bodies.

Much of the Tenth Company seemed to be in attendance; perhaps not all the men who were not on watch, but certainly most of them. They were pressed against the walls in an eager ring, watching with hushed avidity as two figures moved in the open centre. Denethor paused for a moment, taking in the scene. He was taller than most, and the Guards of the City wore low leathern helms instead of the lofty black ones of the Citadel. He could easily gaze over most men's shoulders and some men's heads: well enough, anyhow, to see that the two men in the midst of the throng were sparring not with swords but with quarterstaves.

The shorter of the two swung, and deftly the tall Guard parried. The _thump_ of wood on wood was loud amid the low noises of the crowd. Denethor craned his neck to a better angle as the tall one guarded against another blow. His opponent seemed flustered: he kept striking too quickly, and each time he was easily evaded. Then the tall man ducked, avoiding a swing that should have been blocked from the centre. From his squat he swung his staff around, striking the side of the other man's knee. The joint buckled and the soldier fell: the blow had not been a hard one, but it had struck perfectly on the reflex point.

A cheer went up, and Denethor took advantage of the disorder to elbow his way to the rim of the ring. The tall man was reaching to offer his opponent a hand, and the Guard on his back took it. As he rose, it was clear he was laughing. He clapped his conqueror on the arm.

'I never would have thought it!' he gasped, grinning foolishly as if it had been a pleasure to be beaten. 'I was _sure_ I was… the best in the first four Circles of the City!'

'Most likely you are, and I had only a new man's luck,' said the winner. The earnest praise in his tone surprised Denethor. 'I have not been put through such quick paces in a long while.'

'Let's have it again!' someone shouted from the far corner of the yard. The shorter Guard chuckled breathlessly, and the tall one – whose chest rose and fell only a little more rapidly than the norm – raised an outward palm and shook his head.

'Have mercy, now,' he said calmly, with the note of a master reining in the enthusiasm of his apprentices. 'I have a watch to sit this evening, and so do many of you.'

There was a general groan at this, but it was good-natured. The men looked around as if in search of their next diversion. It was then that they spied their Captain-General in their midst.

Those nearest him bowed at once. Murmurs of 'Sire!' and 'My Lord!' rippled from mouth to mouth. Denethor looked around at them with the cool respect a master of men owed his loyal servants.

'Disperse now: the man speaks aright!' he declaimed, his strong voice filling the walled space. Jerking his chin to the tall Guard, he asked; 'Are you the supplicant lately come, so it has been claimed, from Rohan.'

'I am,' said the soldier. He met Denethor's eyes levelly, not only because he seemed able to withstand the fire within but because they were precisely the same height. 'I see you are a lord of renown among the men, sire, but I do not know you.'

He was well-spoken, far too well-spoken to be a farmer's son or a fisherman. He spoke the Common Tongue in the mode of Gondor, with no trace of the accent of the Rohirrim or any other foreign land. Yet there was something to the cadence of his voice that was unusual, unlike any voice Denethor had heard before. The man was flushed with his exertions and the cold, but already his breath had evened out and he looked no more fatigued than a man who had bolted up a short flight of stairs. His opponent, on the other hand, was still trying to catch his wind as he settled his staff amid the pikes and lances on their sheltered rack.

'You should have made it your business to know me,' said Denethor; 'for I am your Captain-General and the master of all the armies of Gondor. Denethor son of Ecthelion am I, second of that name, and I am Heir to the Steward himself.'

Denethor was not certain what he expected, but given the man's proud features and confident demeanour, it was not what followed. For the stranger planted the butt of his quarterstaff in the frozen earth and dropped to one knee, gloved hand sliding down the length of smooth wood. He bowed his head.

'Then I am yours to command, my Lord. I have come only to aid Gondor in her valiant cause, and I am ready to serve both that aim and your gracious self as best I may.'

'Fair words,' said Denethor. Around him the crowd was dispersing, hastening back indoors away from the chill of the air and the piercing eyes of their Lord. 'Will you ply such language when you say to me that you come to us out of Rohan?'

'I do, sire,' said the man. 'Though it has not suited all to believe me, I do not speak false.'

'I do not doubt that you have come from Rohan,' said Denethor. 'The seal upon the letter you bore is genuine. It is the mark of Thengel son of Fengel, and I know it well.'

The man kept his head respectfully lowered, but he seemed to stiffen at these words as if in eagerness. 'If my Lord has read the letter,' he said, still very calm and perfectly courteous; 'then he will know of the proofs therein contained. I can substantiate my claim to the name of Thorongil, and to the deeds done under that name.'

Denethor moved closer, choosing movement over the confession that the letter was yet unopened. There were only four hangers-back now, clustered near the door and watching spellbound as their Lord in his silks and furs drew near to the genuflecting guard who held his quarterstaff before him like a spear out of legend. These onlookers were beneath Denethor's notice, save as a soldier always notices all that surrounds him. He stopped just short of the stranger's planted boot and tilted his head.

' _That name_ ,' he echoed silkily, still trying to get a firm reading of the man. It was difficult with his eyes downcast and only the crown of his helm bared to Denethor's piercing gaze. 'Not _my name_ , but _that name_.'

'I have taken it to myself, sire. I have earned it and I have paid for it,' said the man. 'It is mine.'

'Yet it is not your right name. This is true, is it not?' asked Denethor. He was noticing other things now. The wool tunic was old, strained flat at the seams, but it had been newly shorn of snags and pills. It was long enough in the body, but too short in the arms: it did not meet the cuff of the gauntlet that held the staff aloft. The cloak atop it was standard issue, falling to this man's knees instead of mid-calf but perfectly serviceable. Yet it was clasped not with a simple iron hook or a brooch of beaten bronze as most were, but with a silver star that glistered in the sunlight.

'I have borne it these nine years, my Lord,' said Thorongil. 'It has served me well.'

'I see.' Denethor began to make a slow circle around the man. Their breath came in frosty billows, and he wondered idly whether the chill of the earth had yet seeped through the shaft of the Guard's high boot where it rested beneath his lowered shin. He wondered whether the man would ask leave to rise before it was granted. He decided it would be useful to know. 'And if I were to ask for the name you were given at birth?'

'Then I would say that I was not raised under that name, sire, and that I have walked more years under the name of Thorongil than under it.'

A hiss of irritation grew in Denethor's throat, but he quelled it almost before it could sound at all. 'Do you realize that such evasions only serve to imperil your position here?' he asked chillingly.

'Your gracious father the Lord Steward of this realm let it be known that men of worth should come to him,' said Thorongil, his tone still placid. 'It is proclaimed that he cares naught for their birth, nor the land in which it occurred. I dared to surmise the same was true of the name given at it.'

'We are not speaking of my father's caring, but of my own,' said Denethor. 'I would know your right name.'

Still the head was bowed in fitting subjugation and still the voice was humble, but the words themselves were but a hair's-breadth from treason. 'My Lord, your caring cannot sway me,' the man who called himself Thorongil said. 'I am unable to tell you of my birth name, as I am unable to tell you the particulars of the time and place it was given. I must hope for your lenience in this matter, for in it I have no choice.'

Denethor had just rounded him again, and he swooped low, bowing his back so that he could take hold of the man's chin with the cup of his hand. He tilted the face upward, firm but not over-rough, so that he could at last look the man in the eye. What he saw was not in the least what he had expected. There was no sign of surprise in them, despite the swiftness of the motion. There was no hint of fear, as an alien should feel before the Lord of the land. There was no artifice either, and no defiance. The eyes were tranquil as rock-pools beneath the autumn sun, pale grey and rimmed in patience.

Denethor let his hand drop and he stepped back, jerking his head. 'You may rise,' he said curtly, realizing too late that he had been the first to yield.

Thorongil did so with the same agile grace he had exhibited in combat. He drew the quarterstaff to him as he must hold the halberd on the walls.

'Thank you, my Lord,' he said gravely, as if taking a cup of spiced wine instead of leave to lift himself out of the dirt. Courtly manners in an ill-fitting cocoon. Denethor's unease was shot through with fascination. What was this man, and why did he behave so strangely? Dignity even before one's betters was one thing, but this graciousness (for there was no other word) was another matter. It left Denethor with the uneasy feeling that it was he who was the supplicant under scrutiny, not this man of no name and mean estate who had come as a place-seeker and a mercenary.

'You fought well, Thorongil of the Guard,' he said in a tone of appraising approval that would have had any man in the Company fawning with gratitude for the commendation. 'Some day I should like to see you wield something more deadly.'

'A quarterstaff is deadly enough, if used aright,' said Thorongil, almost meekly. He inclined his head. 'But I hope Your Lordship shall indeed have the occasion to observe my swordwork. Perhaps when my Company is taken out for their field maneuvers? There is much talk of the excursion.'

'Perhaps,' said Denethor noncommittally. In truth he was unsure he could wait until the Tenth Company took its turn in the open country. Already he was burning with questions about this man: they would haunt his very dreams.

'You are standing the next watch?' he asked. It was an infuriating relief to pose a question to which he knew the answer.

'Yes, my Lord. Patrolling in the Butchers' Quarter,' Thorongil said neatly. 'I have not yet held that post.'

Denethor grunted his acknowledgment of the logic of that: in six days a man could not serve even half the posts in the Second Circle. 'You had best see to your feeding, then, and whatever else you must do before you will be fit to serve. The off hours pass swiftly, especially in play.'

He nodded pointedly at the quarterstaff, and Thorongil's lip curled in wry amusement. 'There is value in play that cannot be had from study,' he said. 'And it gladdens the men. Your pardon, Lord: I must indeed depart as you suggest. I am your servant.'

He bowed then and went to lay away the staff. With a final salute at the doorway, he disappeared into the garrison. Denethor watched him go, his own eyes stormy as molten steel new-cooled in a cruet. Within him wild hosts of thought and feeling warred. His father's policy had been meant to draw men of worth, and there was _something_ of worth in this tall stranger with the pale, chiseled features. Yet there could be no denying that he was hiding much: if a man could not admit to his own name, what else lay concealed behind it?

And he had said _the men_ , speaking not like a common soldier but like a Captain himself. Thorongil the fatherless would have to be watched.


	5. Summoned

**Chapter V: Summoned**

It was a welcome relief when the last petitioner retreated and Ecthelion was able to depart from the throne room. The high vaulted chamber was difficult to heat properly, and at this time of the year it was not a pleasant place to linger. With the White Rod of his office in the crook of one arm, the Steward slipped through the side door that led to the Council chamber. Beyond it was his study, where he could labour over the problems of the realm in relative peace. Certainly it was warmer in there.

The cold snap was nearing a week in length, and folk were starting to murmur of ill omens and the machinations of the Enemy. Such was always the case when the weather fell foul for too long, and the harsher the weather, the shorter the time before the grim whispers began spreading. It had not been so in Ecthelion's youth. Then foul weather had been only foul weather, to be endured with mild irritation until it turned. But since the fires of Mount Doom had once more flared and the Shadow had begun to spread, fear was never far beneath the surface. It only took a little burden — like a few days' deep, dry cold — to crack the façade and let the anxiety bubble over.

It was difficult not to be swept away in such superstitions. As the Steward, Ecthelion had to lead by example. He could not afford to fear the ephemeral, not even in secret. He had to believe that a cold snap was only a cold snap, and that it would pass in its own good time.

The Council chamber was empty, for they were not meeting today. In the days of Turgon, the Steward had met with his Councillors but once a week. Ecthelion had not been long ensconced before he had increased that to twice. As times grew ever darker and the border situation ever more tenuous, more mind than ever had to be given to the ruling of the kingdom. Only a fool supposed he could do such a thing alone, and the Council served as the Steward's first line of aid in his duties, save only his son.

It was with mild surprise that Ecthelion saw the door to his office standing ajar. Such an incongruity would have made Denethor instantly wary, but Ecthelion thought first of the most reasonable explanation. The servant who had come to light the fire, knowing it would be wanted when the public audience concluded, had simply neglected to close it properly. The White Tower had been rebuilt finer and more weathertight than the original, but it was impossible to keep all draughts from a structure of its size – particularly given its lofty exposure to the mountain winds. A door not properly latched would tend to creep with the currents.

He did not approach with apprehension, therefore, and yet his heart leapt within him when his entrance brought a glad cry from the cosy seat in the chimney-corner. Astonished, he did not quite process what was happening until the slender arms were twined about his neck.

'Ada!' cried the young girl, kissing his cool cheek as he wrapped a sluggard of an arm about her back. 'I thought perhaps they would keep you late today. I came readied for a wait.'

She drew back to look at him, hands sliding to his shoulders. Ecthelion's smile was broad and his spirit suddenly merry, cold and worry and weariness forgotten. He looked at his daughter, and he was glad.

Anaiwen, she was: the child of his age and the jewel of his heart. She had been born to the Steward and his Lady when both had thought the days of babes and giggles and jolly little feet far behind them. Ecthelion had taken care to cherish every moment of his youngest daughter's rearing, as he had been too distracted by duty and the labours of a Captain-General to do with the others. It had meant laying some of the responsibilities of his office on Denethor, but his son flourished in authority and had always deported himself well.

Now Anaiwen was seventeen, nearly grown but yet several years from full womanhood. She was witty and vivacious, every bit as intelligent as her brother but with none of his guarded severity. She twisted in Ecthelion's arms to point to the workbasket she had been in the midst of unpacking.

'I promised Naneth that I would work on the new linens for the Hallows,' she said. 'She wanted to keep me indoors on account of the cold, but I managed to convince her that it would be perfectly hospitable in here. I was right, as you can see.'

Ecthelion took her left hand from his shoulder and kissed the back of the fingers that curled so perfectly about his own. 'You ventured out in this weather, just to visit me?'

'Do I need a better reason?' asked Anaiwen blithely, slipping from his grasp and moving to drag the tall carven chair back from his worktable so that the Steward might sit. 'Or should it be a _more ennobling_ reason? My philosophy master is a great advocate of finding _ennobling_ pursuits in one's daily life.'

'I should think honouring your father an ennobling pursuit, my dear one,' laughed Ecthelion. He laid aside the Rod and spread his heavy garments smoothly as he sat.

His daughter flitted back to the seat by the hearth, tucking up her feet beneath the broad skirts of her polished worsted kirtle. She was well-clad for the weather, wearing over it a half-long gown with tippets and lining of fur. On her feet were fleece-lined leather shoes. Her mantle was folded over the writing chest in the corner, and she had spread her hood and gloves near the fire to warm. Now she picked up her piece of fine sewing and smoothed it over one knee as she found her place.

'I'm afraid it is not the only reason I have come, Ada,' she said with a little smile of apology, as if to say she did not wish to disillusion him. 'Valacar came by the House in search of you, and he left that.'

She pointed with her finger, thumb and needle at the middle of the desk, where a packet sat. It was of costly paper, creamy white but stained with smudges of ink just recognizable as blurred _tengwar_. Someone had tried to blot away the marks when wet, but the efforts had been only marginally successful. Ecthelion found himself trying to read the figures, backwards though they were, and he forced himself to look away before he brought on a headache.

'You could have sent Valacar here,' he pointed out. 'There was no need to venture forth yourself, not on a day like this.'

'That is precisely what Naneth said, and Rínil warned me that it's ill luck to go out in weather like this,' she said. Her nurse, now her chief maid, was a doleful woman and particularly susceptible to seeing portents. Anaiwen frowned with the stubborn assurance of a young girl firmly set in her own opinions. 'That is when I decided it _must_ be done. You have told me talk of foul weather coming from the East is nonsense, and Denethor is always saying that we must defy the very idea of the Shadow, lest in our fear it shall conquer all.'

Such frank words from young lips should have saddened Ecthelion, but the blunt courage in his daughter's voice filled him with pride and a true sense of hope for the long years to come. 'Still, Valacar might have brought this,' he said fondly, picking up the letter and weighing it in his hand.

'Yes,' allowed Anaiwen; 'but the Comptroller had to confer with him about Denethor's household accounts, and I thought you would want it as soon as possible. Turn it over, Ada: just see who sent it!'

Brows furrowing a little at the eagerness in his child's voice, Ecthelion obeyed. His eyes went first to the writing, its blocky stoutness standing out in a bold but unrefined way that had been the despair of many a scribe. Heart quickening within him, he glanced at the seal. There in the wax galloped the horse of Rohan.

Anaiwen was watching him with shining eyes, leaning forward over her sewing like a child rapt in the high drama of a play. 'It is from Thengel, isn't it, father? From your friend the King?'

Ecthelion looked up, smiling as he nodded. Anaiwen did not remember the days when Thengel son of Fengel dwelt in Gondor, much less the time he had spent in the very home of the Steward, but she had heard stories all her life. She had met him, too, on several occasions – most recently the marriage of his second daughter. Something about the dispossessed young man taking shelter in a foreign land before riding home to reclaim his crown captured her girlish imagination.

'Did it arrive this morning?' he asked, wondering why the runner from the Riddermark would not have brought it into the Citadel himself. The tokens of the King of Rohan would have been sufficient for him to pass through every Gate of the City without challenge, if not without an escort.

'Valacar said that Denethor asked him to bring it to you,' said Anaiwen. 'I did not think to ask when it came. Should I have done so?'

'No, no, loyal heart,' said Ecthelion softly, reaching for the slender silver letter-knife so that he could lift the seal without breaking it. He stole another glance and his lovely little lady with her long, dark plaits bound back with crimson ribbons. Then he opened the letter.

The first thing he noticed was that the date was old: almost six weeks old, in fact. Even afoot, a journey from Edoras to Minas Tirith would not have taken half that time. Puzzled, he moved to the salutation. The amicable line of address above the seal led him to expect an informal and affable missive. This was not the case. He read:

_Ecthelion, Dear as Brother,_

_I write to commend to you the bearer of this letter. This man has served me well for nigh on nine years, and rendered much noble labour to the good of Rohan and the defence of our borders. He is a man of courage, of integrity, and of great skill. With the sword, his talents are unmatched in all my realm. With the spear he is as deft as most of my Captains. With bow, with axe, with knife and mace he is any man's equal and many men's better. In no skill of the field does he want for proficiency. Even upon horseback he is a marvel to behold, for all that he was not born to the green fields of the Riddermark nor raised to ride our horses – finest in all the world._

_Furthermore he has been found, by me and by others, to be a capable strategist and a great leader of men. He has served me well, both in the field of war and in more personal matters. I have found him ever to be steadfast, trustworthy and wise. It is with heartfelt confidence that I present him to you, for I do not doubt he will serve you as nobly and as diligently as he has served me these last nine years. I am sorry to be bereft of his loyal presence, but it gladdens my heart to know that at least I send him to the aid of a great friend – and a friend whose need for such a man is far graver than my own._

_That you may be assured the man before you is indeed the mighty Thorongil, we two have agreed upon proofs. If asked, he shall be able to give to you the name of the mare he brought down the mountain, when first he became known to me. She is Dicea of the_ Mearas _, a fair and fearsome steed even then. Furthermore, lest clever hands and prying eyes intercept this missive, you may read upon his body the evidence of his loyal service. He bears a scar, like in shape to a compass rose but with much elongation of the east-west arm, above the crest of his right hip. Its centre is three finger-spans towards his back. The scar is now old, and long gone white. It is a mark of his first victory in my service, of which no doubt he can tell you better than I._

_Should any further assurances be needed, or the particulars of his record be wanted, you have only to ask and I shall provide them. I have been asked in this missive to speak only to his qualities, not his deeds, and I have done as best I can to meet that condition. You will soon learn that Thorongil keeps close his own counsel on questions of a personal sort, though that which he gives on martial matters is generous and unrivalled in its quality._

_Use well the gift I send you now, and treat him according to his worth – if even in your mighty realm you have honours enough to offer him. You may find him a challenging man to elevate in worldly things, but command and responsibility I have found him ever ready to accept._

_Good fortune go with you, my friend. In Thorongil you have its surest agent._

_In lasting fidelity,_

_Thengel King, Lord of the Riddermark, Your brother._

By the time his eyes reached the bottom of the page, Ecthelion's brows were furrowed with puzzlement. He looked to the first lines again and assured himself that he had read them aright. _I write to commend to you the bearer of this letter_. Clearly Thengel had expected this man Thorongil, whoever he might be, to present the missive himself. Instead it had come through at least three other pairs of hands: from Denethor's to his secretary's and so to Anaiwen's. How Denethor had come by it was another mystery entirely.

'What did Valacar say of this?' Ecthelion asked, looking up at his daughter.

Anaiwen had been politely intent upon her sewing, but the swiftness with which she raised her eyes told him that she had been acutely intent upon his actions. 'Very little, Ada,' she said. 'He was clear that Denethor had ordered him to bring it, but he said no more and we did not question him. I presumed the messenger came first to the Captain-General, as they often do, and that he thought this the best way to see the letter to your hands.'

'Indeed,' murmured Ecthelion. 'Did the secretary mention why his master did not bring it himself?'

'No, but Naneth asked where Denethor was, and Valacar said he had gone down into the city on some matter of business,' said Anaiwen. Her lips pursed uneasily. 'Is it ill news, my Lord father?'

'No…' Ecthelion frowned at the letter again, as if his disapproval might prompt it to confess its secrets. 'It is a letter of character for a man who has been a Rider of Rohan. It is meant to assure me of the bearer's qualities and his fitness for my service.'

Anaiwen laughed. 'Pray tell: what are my qualities, since I am the bearer?'

A smile was surprised onto the Steward's face, and his heart was warmed. She was a witty child, and never one to miss a sharp jest. 'It seems you are proficient with all manner of arms,' he said. 'And you have fetched a mare down from a mountain for the King of Rohan?'

'Oh, I fetch mares down from mountains incessantly, Ada,' said Anaiwen with an air of insouciant sincerity. 'It is difficult to catch me doing anything else. Though you see it not, I am fetching one even as we speak.'

'You are a maid of many gifts,' said Ecthelion. 'Yet can you tell me of your first victory in Thengel's service?'

'I believe I pronounced his name without lisping,' Anaiwen said gravely. 'I was not yet three.'

'You could not remember that!' chuckled Ecthelion. 'You only know it is so because Telpiriel loves to share that tale. She had been working with you for weeks, trying to teach you the proper sound, and you refused to perform it for her. She was in despair that you would disgrace us all, only to have you curtsey quite prettily and greet him perfectly.'

'I have some of the familial stubbornness,' Anaiwen laughed, tossing her head. 'It is easy to forget, as I am so very obedient.'

'Yes… Yet it seems this man Thorongil is not,' Ecthelion mused, frowning again at the letter. 'It is clear from the words that he was meant to bring this letter to me himself, and yet here I sit with a missive and no man. Did Valacar say what business brought your brother down into the City, or when he might be expected to return?'

'No, Ada.' Anaiwen's tone was no longer so sunny. She was watching him in puzzled concern, clearly taken by his unease. 'Shall I run to ask him?'

'No need of that, dear one,' said Ecthelion. He turned his face towards the door. 'Guard!' he called in a deep and resonant voice of command.

There was a _clack_ of boots on stone, and one of the Guards of the Citadel appeared in the doorway. His arms were crossed over the device of the White Tree upon his tabard, and he bowed low.

'My Lord,' he murmured.

'Send word to the Seventh Gate,' Ecthelion declared. 'When my son returns to the Citadel, he is to attend me at once. Assure him that no business is more pressing than this.'

'Yes, sire,' said the Guard. 'Shall I have him found, sire?'

Ecthelion paused to consider this. If Denethor had not told Valacar where he was bound – or if he had, and Valacar had felt the need to keep quiet about it – then it was unlikely that he wished to be sought. The many duties of the Steward's Heir were not always suitable for all to know. Trusted though the Guards of the Citadel were, it might be best not to have a contingent of them stumble in upon Denethor's business unannounced.

'No; it is not urgent enough to warrant that,' Ecthelion said. 'But see that he attends me _at once_ upon his return.'

'Yes, sire,' said the Guard. Ecthelion inclined his head and waved him off, and the man retreated.

'What has Denethor done?' Anaiwen asked when the door of the Council chamber scraped closed.

Ecthelion turned his sharp gaze upon her, wondering just how all this looked to her inexperienced eyes. He tried to smile tenderly, and as ever found it an easy thing. 'Nothing worthy of censure, of that I am certain,' he said. 'Yet he has sent me a letter without its rightful bearer, and I must learn why.'

'Perhaps he does not trust him,' said Anaiwen, an arch little note to her tone. Yet when Ecthelion fixed stern eyes upon her she was sewing again, beatific innocence upon her sweet face.

_lar_

At the change of the watch, Thorongil relieved the soldier from the Eleventh Company of his post. This was a patrol, rather than a set watch: much favoured in the winter when to stand stationary for hours was a bitterly cold business. In the lower City, at least, the Guards were not expected to remain fixed to the spot and all but motionless, but still it was a far more pleasant business to be walking up and down streets among the citizenry. In his few short days in Minas Tirith, Thorongil had seen much of her daily life. Guards, it seemed, were almost invisible. He heard and witnessed much to which any other observer would not have been privy.

The Butchers' Quarter was aptly named, and after only a few minutes Thorongil could tell that this patrol would be far less pleasant in summer. The smells of blood and offal were muted by the cold, and there were no insects to swarm to them tonight. The ice between the cobbles had a distinct pinkish cast, and the noises of livestock awaiting their turn upon the block warred with the voices raised in hawking or haggling. Most of the custom seemed to be of the poor-to-middling variety, though he saw some in fine garments made over: servants of prosperous houses. Thorongil guessed that those still wealthier had their meat delivered to kitchen doors, and that most of it came from this very section. It was difficult to imagine so noisome a trade being permitted in the upper Circles.

As he walked, alert to any signs of trouble, he reflected upon his brief time in Minas Tirith. He was settling comfortably into the life of the Tenth Company. His assignment had brought them up to their full compliment of ninety-six men, with Captain Minardil and his three lieutenants rounding it out to one hundred. About two-thirds were housed in the garrison, including the Captain himself. The rest had dwellings in one of the three lowest levels of the City. The barracks was subdivided into small booths, each of which held four bunks. Unlike in the lowest ranks of the Riders of Rohan, the men of Gondor each had their own bed, narrow though they were. It was a luxury Thorongil had not expected, but one for which he was very grateful.

The day was comprised of four watches, and a man ordinarily stood two. These were usually not consecutive, though sometimes a double watch could not be avoided. Thorongil was still on the light duty he had been promised for his first week, but in another two days he would assume the same roster as the other men. He was glad of that, for now that he was beginning to settle in he found he had rather too much free time. He was used to the arduous schedule of an Undermarshal, rising with the dawn to inspect and assemble his éored before moving on to receiving reports from the captains beneath his command, and then to work through the day's maneuvers or skirmishes or other like business until the setting of the Sun. Nor had his labours often ended then, for the administrative matters of his Quarter Muster filled many late nights. After all this, a single six-hour watch did not seem to fill much of the day.

Thorongil had made good use of the time, getting to know the men of the Tenth Company. Most took their cue from their Captain and were welcoming, if understandably curious. A few were rather aloof at first, though these seemed to be warming. There were three who seemed openly hostile, snubbing him at meals and speaking ill of him to others, but that was to be expected in a City with such wariness of newcomers. Thorongil was grateful to have been placed under a tolerant Captain: his lot would have been far worse in Bregold's Company, for instance.

He had found the sparring yard to be an excellent place to forge new friendships. These were by nature active men, but winter's weather had been keeping them sedentary more often than they realized. With the incentive of gauging a new recruit to bring them out, most found fresh vigour and enjoyment in the various close drills. Thorongil had met nineteen men in single combat with the unwieldy practice blades, and had used other weapons against about half a dozen more. He had yet to be bested, but rather than frustrating the other Guards this seemed to encourage them. Everyone wanted his turn against the new man, each hoping to be the one to finally make him yield. Thorongil's way of encouraging a man in defeat served him well: he was building camaraderie rather than hard feelings.

He made it a point to spend two hours of each day abroad in the City. He had only the two lowest levels at his disposal, but there was much to see and much to learn. He heard the Elvish tongue lest often than he had expected or hoped, but when he did it was well-spoken. The folk of these two levels were of the lower ranks of society, yet he had observed little abject poverty. This was due in part, Thorongil suspected, to the surfeit of dwelling space. Although the streets were busy and the City functioning well, many homes and trade buildings stood vacant. Some looked to have been empty for decades or even centuries. Asking discretely, he learned that the population of Minas Tirith had been dwindling steadily over the years, though no one could quite specify the rate. As the Shadow grew, the City began to seem far too near its edge for comfort.

The remainder of his free time Thorongil spent on restoring his sword. It was slow work, scraping away at the rust with a lump of soft copper. He had judged rightly that the damage was only surface-deep, and he meant to keep it that way: careful cleaning was needed. The copper he had borrowed from one of his booth-mates, and he had spent a couple of his pennies on a bottle of oil and a soft piece of lambskin for buffing the steel. A whetstone he already possessed. Fresh wrappings for the hilts would have to wait until he drew his first month's wage, but as he was at present still restoring that part of the sword as well, this was no hardship.

It was an excellent blade, however weathered. The Númenorean steel was of the very finest. Clearly it had been wrought by a master swordsmith, and Thorongil was compelled to wonder how it had found its way through the generations to a disused corner of a lowly armoury. He had tried it once or twice on the quintain in the yard, and he had fallen into the feel of the sword as swiftly as he had any piece of Noldorin craftsmanship in his younger days. He had thought the sword he bore in Rohan a fine weapon, but this one put it to shame.

He had it at his side now, its still-speckled blade concealed in the battered but serviceable sheath. It was as much a part of a Guard's livery as the indifferently dyed tunic or heavy but too often inadequate cloak. Without the need to hold a pike or a halberd, Thorongil could keep his arms in the shelter of the latter. He was glad of that, for the ring of bare flesh between cuff and gauntlet was quick to burn with the cold. He had not expected such a chill in these climes, and from the talk around him he knew it was unusual. Had his Company been less favourably inclined towards him, they might have blamed the stranger for bringing the cold with him.

As it drew onto sunset, the streets grew quiet. Most folk were bound for home to fix up their purchases for the day-meal. The butchers and cutters were winding down their day's labours. Thorongil was perplexed when, abruptly and seemingly out of nowhere, the shops were once more beset with patrons. It took him only a few minutes of observing these shabbily dressed figures with their clumsy homemade willow baskets to realize what was going on.

The poor of the city were coming to buy or to beg the scraps and gristle and off-cuts, apparently amassed throughout the day and sold very cheaply by weight at its ending. Marrow bones, of course, were priced for the comfortably-off, but the smaller bones with their shreds of flesh seemed the least costly stuff of all: only the very ragged, their cast-off garments bundled around too-thin frames, bought those. Watching them, Thorongil felt a weary and half-sick pity. It seemed there was desperate poverty in the White City after all; it was merely hidden from sight behind cold stone walls.

There was naught that he could do for these sorry folk. He had not even his few little coins on his person, for carrying extra gear on watch was not encouraged. All he could do was keep a keen lookout for any rogues and pickpockets trying to prey upon the destitute. And, he realized after several of these people stepped down into the muck and blood of the gutters in order to give him a wide berth, he could refrain from harassing them. They seemed to expect something – whether a sharp word or a cuff or worse he could not say. Thorongil noted grimly that he would have to speak to Minardil about it. The problem might not be with the Guards of the Second Level, for there was no like quarter in the First, but in either case it had to be addressed.

A sympathetic voice interrupted his grim thoughts. 'When first I came, I did not expect this also.'

Thorongil looked around, momentarily puzzled, until he caught sight of another man in the livery of the Guard. He stood on the next street corner, just out of the pool of light cast by a shop's front lantern. Darkness fell swiftly in the lower levels of Minas Tirith, for the mountains overshadowed them.

There was an unusual tone and accent to the voice, and Thorongil began to walk towards him. 'I had hoped that in such a city there would be few to buy up the scraps of the more fortunate,' he said as he came.

'And I had hoped that the noble Men of the West would do more to provide for their poor,' said the other soldier. He stepped into the light, revealing a face with skin of a warm brown tone. His dark eyes and thick black brows further branded him an Easterling. Another of Ecthelion's Follies, no doubt.

'We should,' said Thorongil softly. He worked his hand out of the shelter of his cloak to offer it. The other Guard clasped his arm companionably. 'I am Thorongil, newly come to Minas Tirith as you have plainly surmised. I am serving with the Tenth Company.'

'Jamon, of the Ninth,' said the other man. He was tall for his race, but Thorongil overtopped him by almost three hands. 'Yes, I could see that you are new. After a time, we no longer look so dismayed at the spectacle. Further, I do not know you, and it is strange for a man of Gondor to be sent back down from the upper levels.'

'I am not a man of Gondor,' said Thorongil. 'I have come from a far country to serve the Steward, as he has bade men do. Am I remiss in thinking the same is true of you?'

'No, I am myself a stranger,' said Jamon, a wry half-smile upon his face. 'Yet I look it and you do not. You are fortunate in that, Thorongil of the Tenth Company. Soon they will forget you are not one of them.'

This brought a grim frown to Thorongil's lips. 'Then you are not made welcome?' he asked.

Jamon shrugged. 'Those who know me are friendly. I have comrades in my Company, and some among the people.' Then he smiled broadly, revealing straight and well-kept teeth. 'I am to be married, so I suppose I cannot complain of my welcome.'

'You have my wishes for a joyous and fruitful life together,' said Thorongil. 'How long have you been in the City?'

'Seven years,' said Jamon. He looked around. 'Come: if we are to talk on patrol, at least we ought to be walking it.'

They started up the cross-street, Thorongil shortening his steps to match the other man's. 'What do you make of Minas Tirith?' he asked. 'I have never travelled to the far countries over Anduin. Have you such cities in the land of your birth?'

'Such a city as this, no,' said Jamon. 'Our cities grow outward, not up, and they are not so orderly. It has the look of a draftsman's daydream, does it not? The streets so true, their meetings so square. Only the Gates look to have been scattered as if by a child, and that was of careful design.'

'It was indeed built to a plan,' said Thorongil; 'and its streets laid out all at once. The houses sprouted with time, but the City itself is much as it was when first Anarion son of Elendil cast wide the Great Gate to greet his brother.'

'You are learned in the history of Gondor?' asked Jamon. 'Yet you say you are not one of its people.'

'I have made it my study,' Thorongil said. 'For many years it has been my wish to come here. Yet in six days I have learned more of the ways of Minas Tirith than could have been gleaned from a lifetime's study of old tomes and written accounts.'

Jamon looked momentarily wistful. Then he gave a small shake of his head, scanning an alleyway as they passed it. 'This place was different than I believed it to be, also,' he said. 'I came on the strength of a rumour, looking to find a place of beauty and freedom far from the Shadow. I found beauty, yes, and freedom of a kind… but the Shadow is near, and each year it comes more near, and in the end this is just another City, imperfect and filled with its own troubles.'

'Imperfect.' The word lingered on Thorongil's tongue, at once an accusation and a sacred charge. Imperfection itself was not a failing, if ever one strived towards a better state. He had not yet seen if Minas Tirith lay on such a course, but if it was in his power to ensure it, he would.

This brought to his mind another question, one that had been troubling him for over a week now. 'How were you welcomed when first you came to Gondor?' he asked.

Jamon laughed. 'I was asked many questions by men both small and mighty. They wished to know every particular of my enslavement in the armies of the Eye. They kept me for a time, until they were sure of me. Even then there were men in my Company set to watch me for many months.' He squinted to see Thorongil's expression on the gloom, and he grinned. 'But I have proved faithful, and I have my Captain's trust. I will never rise above my present post, but it is high enough.'

'Does that not anger you?' asked Thorongil. 'The Steward has promised rank and reward to those who serve him well, and yet you say you can climb no higher.'

'That is not the Steward's doing,' said Jamon. 'I am only a common soldier, and that is all I will ever be. I refuse to go with the armies that cross the river, for to be captured by the Enemy would be for me a fate far worse than death. I have not the gentle ways that would make me suited to the upper levels. So here I am and here I shall remain.'

'I see.' Thorongil wondered how much of this was true, but it was plain at least that Jamon believed it. The shadow of terror that had come over his whole being when he spoke of capture left Thorongil unwilling to probe too deeply. He sought to find a new direction for their talk.

'This patrol will be unpleasant in more clement weather,' he said. 'What are the worst watches, and which are the best?'

'The worst?' asked Jamon. 'For any man, or for me? I do not like the watch upon the lower Gate, though many find it pleasant. There is… bad blood between myself and some of the men in the lesser Companies. Not all like to be ranked lower than an Easterling. The watch upon the walls is worst when the wind is high, places like this least likeable when the weather is hot. But each post has its merits and each its trials. It is the very nature of the broken world.'

Thorongil had to stop himself before echoing these words also. The way in which Jamon spoke them made it plain that this was an old saying, doubtless brought from his homeland. It was transfixing to realize that in such a distant place people might speak of the same sorrow in words so similar.

'Where I was born,' Thorongil said softly; 'we call it the fate of Arda Marred.'

Jamon shook his head. 'I do not know the Elvish tongue,' he said. 'I knew little of this one when first I came. In my homeland I was a man of letters, a scribe of the state before they pressed me into service. Here I am lucky to be able to read a posted edict or to write the day's date.'

'Do you wish to learn?' Thorongil asked. He was no stranger to offering informal tutelage: many of his men had been eager to learn more of Westron and its writing.

'Who has time for study?' chuckled Jamon. 'Twelve hours of the day spent at watch, another six – or nearly – for sleep, and six to woo my lady and placate her father. If you had asked me two years ago, it might have been different.'

Thorongil thought that perhaps literacy would help the man's prospects for promotion, if his skin proved not too great a barrier among the Captains of Gondor, but he did not say it. He had no wish to raise false hopes, and he did not yet have a measure of those who held power in this City. His meeting with the Steward's Heir this afternoon had been a strange one: part lecture, part interrogation, and part a strange and sinuous dance. What had been plain was that the Captain-General was an immensely intelligent man. He had picked up on ambiguities of speech that Thorongil had scarcely known he was using, and he had made of them a prybar to lever at the secrets beneath. When next they met, Thorongil would have to be more careful. And assuredly they would meet again: Denethor would see to that.

'Your lady must be a delight to your heart,' Thorongil said, because it was the courteous subject to undertake. He tried to avoid such talk when he could, for it woke within him a hollowness that nothing could assuage. Yet the joy Jamon took in his betrothal was obvious, and it would give him pleasure to relate it to a new pair of ears.

'She is!' the other Guard sighed, grinning like a green boy although he must have been drawing on to forty. 'She is as patient as the day is long – which is to say, a little less in the wintertime when the world is cold – and she is very clever. She can read and write, which in my land is a rarity in woman. She brings me joy in the smallest particular. She—'

'Ho, there!' a deep voice called, ringing up the empty street and echoing off the tall houses. Both men turned to see a third Guard striding up towards them. He nodded his chin at Thorongil. 'Are you the new man? From the Tenth Company?'

'I am,' said Thorongil, mildly enough despite a burst of apprehension. What cause would any have to seek him while on duty? Irrational though it was, he found himself sifting through his deeds of recent days to find where he had erred.

'You're to go to the Gate,' the Guard announced. He was not one of the Tenth Company, but neither did he greet Jamon. It was possible that he was intent upon his mission, but he was just as likely a man from the Eleventh. 'The Guard there will take you up. Seems you're _wanted_.'

There was a note of mockery to that last word, and it only intensified Thorongil's unease. 'Where am I wanted, and why?' he asked.

'I don't ask the _whys_!' blustered the Guard incredulously. 'When orders come down for a man to report to the Citadel, he reports: no questions. I'm to take the rest of your watch. Get on, now. Move!'

With no further discussion, Thorongil went. He took off at a brisk walk, his strides stretching back to their comfortable length. Behind him he could hear Jamon and the other Guard dividing up the patrol area, but he had no thought to spare for that. Summoned to the Citadel? Perhaps the Steward's son had drawn some conclusions about the stranger after all. Thorongil could not help but wonder whether he was about to be put to a serious interrogation, like the one Jamon described. A more promising voice suggested that perhaps his letter had found its way to the Steward's hand at last, but he quelled that hope. If he had heard nothing of it yet, it was unlikely that he would ever do so.

Fixing his mind upon gathering his composure and resolve for whatever was to come, Thorongil turned onto the broad way that led up to the Third Gate.


End file.
